142: SLP Live: An Overview of Gestalt Language Processing and Natural Language Acquisition

This episode is part of a digital conference event called SLP Live. Listening to this episode does not automatically guarantee ASHA CEUs. If you want to earn .1 ASHA CEUs, download the playbook, join the Facebook community, and grab the other courses materials for this episode, please register for the conference, SLP Live, using this link: Tasseltogether.com/courses/slp-live-2022

TRANSCRIPT

[00:000:0] Venita Litvack: Hi, everyone. I am so excited to share this guest with you. We are going to be talking about gestalt language processing, and natural language acquisition. And Alex, you're going to have to correct me if I'm saying this wrong. I actually thought it was gestalt, and then I started taking your course and I was like, oh, that's the way to say it.

So I'm doing my best here, but 

[00:00:22] Alexandria Zanchos: perfect. Um, it is a word that can be said two ways. 

[00:00:29] Venita Litvack: That's good to know. I'll go with gestalt then. Cause that's going to be a lot easier for me to, um, so before I have you introduce yourself really quickly, if anyone's not familiar with me, my name is Vinita lip back.

I have a passion for AAC, assistive technology and literacy, and I've been able to deliver some poster presentations on AAC at Asher. I used to be a consultant for a device company. School district assistive technology specialist here in Florida. And now I am a part-time teller therapist, AAC consultant, [00:01:00] and speechie site up hosts as well as a mom to a little over one-year-old.

And I just decided one day, like as my new year's resolution to start preparing for a sprint triathlon, which is like the easiest type of triathlon. So let's see how this happens by the 

[00:01:15] Alexandria Zanchos: end of the year. Great goal. 

[00:01:20] Venita Litvack: All right. And then Alex. Yeah, let's hear all about. 

[00:01:22] Alexandria Zanchos: Sure. So, um, my name is Alexandria. Zach goes, um, I do go by Alex.

Um, I have been a speech language pathologist for almost 19 years now. Um, I am licensed in the state of Illinois. I have had a variety of, um, Variance in all settings ranging from early intervention to acute care. And, um, I am now in, I was in the schools for nine years. I'm now a private practice. Um, I own a private practice.

Um, in the suburbs of Chicago, um, I [00:02:00] found natural language acquisition, English shot language processing about six years ago. Um, and I'm going to get into that during this interview. Um, but that is. Kind of my niche now. And I started meaningful speech in 2020 to educate SLPs parents and professionals about echo Lelea and gestalt language processing.

And I am also a mom and a wife. My girls are ages seven and almost 10. Oh, well, 

[00:02:29] Venita Litvack: well grilled says best. Yes. Let's talk a little bit more about your membership. I know this. You know, we're doing an interview here, but it is an amazing membership. So can you just talk about like what's included? I know you're reopening it.

So if anybody's interested, this is a great time. I think. 

[00:02:48] Alexandria Zanchos: Sure. Thanks. Yeah. So what is changing actually is it is no longer a membership. I did launch in April of 2021 as a membership where people were paying monthly and [00:03:00] I was, um, kind of releasing courses every quarter or so along with other materials now, um, that we're relaunching in February, it is going to be sold just as a course.

So you will have lifetime access. Once you pay for it and any updates I do or anything else I add will be yours. Um, so it is 18 hours about of con ma might be a little bit more of continuing education. Um, and it is open to SLPs, SLPs and parents. And. The professionals, the SLPs or the SLPs that take it are able to take a final exam.

And if they pass with over 80 per cent or more, they are able to have the opportunity to be listed in our NLA trained clinician registry, which went live last week. And you can find that@meaningfulspeechregistry.com and parents can go on there and find a provider that understands this in their [00:04:00] area.

I'm really excited because people have been DM-ing and emailing me, telling me they've already matched up with someone. 

[00:04:08] Venita Litvack: Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, it's an incredible course. And I've only gotten to like the first two modules, but the handouts have been super helpful, especially in coaching parents. So it's an amazing resource.

Thank you for that. Thank you. All right. So we did a little bit of introductions and backgrounds. Then we'll get into a description of gestalt language processing. We'll go a little bit more in depth. Then we'll talk about the guest salt language processing characteristics and why SLP should know about it.

And then we'll talk about different treatment strategies and how to write functional goals. And we'll wrap up with a live Q. And then Alex, I'll let you share your financial nonfinancial disclosures for, 

[00:04:54] Alexandria Zanchos: yeah. So I'm the owner and operator of meaningful speech, LLC. Um, I'm also being [00:05:00] offered a stipend for this podcast episodes.

[00:05:03] Venita Litvack: Yeah. And then I have the following relevant financial relationships to disclose. I have ownership interest in speechie situp LLC and tassel learning, LLC. And I receive real royalties from the Lunas, what to do book series. And then I am a member of ashes, special interest group. So our hope by the end of this podcast today is that you'll be able to define gestalt language processing, identify three characteristics of gestalt language processing.

Describe at least two treatment strategies for gestalt language processors, and finally identify three reasons why it's important to identify guests thought language process. All right. So let's dive in. Let's start with just the basic, what is guests out? Language 

[00:05:48] Alexandria Zanchos: processing. Yeah. So I'll start out by saying that the majority of you listening have probably not heard about it, unless maybe you found me on Instagram or found Marge Blank's [00:06:00] book.

Um, it is actually language develop. I think what is a mind blowing to a lot of people when they find out about it is that we were taught in graduate school, that there was one way to develop language and that is analytical language development. And an example of that is kids start out by babbling and then they say one word, and then they say two words in three, and then nursing sentences.

So. I recently posted something, showing the difference between gestalt language processing and analytical language processing. And so for I'm going to use milk as an example. So for an analytic processor, they might start out by saying milk and then mama milk, and then mama more milk. So it's this building up.

So as SLPs, we've always thought, okay, that's how a kid develops language. So if we're not hearing that, if we're not hearing those words, then they have a disorder, then we need to get in there and give them words. [00:07:00] So I'm here to tell you that that is not the only way to develop language . Um, it, the word itself means whole.

So kids that develop, um, in like a shawl language fashion are. Really looking at language as a whole. So in stage one, echo Lelea, they are not processing words as units. They are more focused on intonation. Gestalt processors have been called intonation babies and their whole thinkers. So back to the milk example, The first thing that you might hear a gestalt language processor say, um, regarding, um, you know, milk or requesting a drink or anything, you know, food related might be, um, milk comes from past.

So that might be a script that they picked up from a teacher, a show, a YouTube clip, a movie. Um, [00:08:00] now I'm going to get into how it can look and sound different for different kids that aren't in stage one, echo Lelea. Um, All gestalts all scripts are tied to an emotional experience. So they hold meaning for the child.

So that milk comes from cows, maybe stuck with the child for some reason. Um, they were feeling some kind of emotion or it was dramatic. And now that might be their script, you know, for milk. Um, so we, we can get into that in the next slides, but I think the biggest takeaway that I want everyone. To come away with this knowing is that gestalt language development is language development.

[00:08:45] Venita Litvack: Yeah. That's so important to point that out. Thank you for sharing that. A question that I have, and I'm sure this was talked about in March blondes. Northern speech services course and yours as well. But I need a little [00:09:00] bit of a refresher for these babies that are intonation babies or guest out language processors.

When do you start to see that echo Layli up here? Because I am sure a lot of it is dependent on. There motor development and the ability to actually like produce those 

[00:09:15] Alexandria Zanchos: phrases. Yeah. So, um, one hallmark, um, that I think is on a next slide is, um, long strings of unintelligible language. And so a lot of times we identify this as jargon.

So in EDI therapists might get called in and say, he has no words and all he does his job. Well, one of the indicators that the child could be a gestalt processor is hearing that intonation in their jargon. So they have the rich intonation, but you're not hearing each individual word because they're not picking up on each word.

They're picking up on it as a whole. So like, can you come down for dinner? Might be it. To [00:10:00] them. Um, and they might say that, you know, anytime it's time to eat. Um, so it takes some detective work from us sometimes with these younger gestalt processors that haven't caught up. But I would say this way of thinking for them is starts very, can start very young.

Okay. Yeah. 

[00:10:22] Venita Litvack: So the, the way that they're processing the language starts very young, but the way that we're perceiving it might be a little bit later than like battling for say or per se. Got it. Okay, great. So how do you know a child is a gestalt language? 

[00:10:38] Alexandria Zanchos: Yeah. So I hit upon a couple of these, um, a little bit ago, but we're looking for rich intonation, um, long strings of unintelligible utterances, like I just mentioned, which are often thought of as jargon.

The one that is. The example that everybody sort of thinks about with echolalia are the scripts or gestalts, [00:11:00] um, from movies or something someone said, or a YouTube clip, um, they can be shorter long and they're tied to an emotional experience. Um, and then we also have stuck single words. And what I mean by stuck is those single words.

R a unit in the gestalt processor's mind. So they can't be combined with other words in stage one. Um, but the. The child. So the child isn't doing anything with the single word. Um, it kind of stands alone. And a lot of kids get these stuck single words because oftentimes they're being treated as analytic language processors and the parent or teacher or speech pathologist is focused on getting them more words.

And so they're pushing, labeling, um, and things like that. And so these kids have tons of these single words, but nothing more. [00:12:00] And you can see a combination of any of these Vinny. Don't like, it can be all of these. It can be one of these. It can be two of these 

[00:12:10] Venita Litvack: very, very interesting, um, with the stuck single words, is there still that emotional component tied to it as well?

Even though, like the words are kind of being drilled by a professional 

[00:12:22] Alexandria Zanchos: or maybe even a parent. That's a great question. And yes, I have found that to be true. Um, and it won't words or phrases or, you know, longer gunshots won't stick with the child unless they're emotionally tied in or invested. So I think the more dramatic something is the more likely it's going to stick.

[00:12:49] Venita Litvack: Okay, that makes sense. And I probably should've asked this on the previous slide, but where does this research, like, based off of, I know you mentioned March Splunk's book or [00:13:00] anybody that's not familiar with gestalt language processing. Can we talk a little bit more about the research and like why our program.

Talking about this very much. And maybe they are more now, but I'd love to hear that. 

[00:13:12] Alexandria Zanchos: Absolutely. So I'll start out by saying there are only five or six, I believe graduate programs in the United States right now that are teaching this in their curriculum. Um, like Southeastern Louisiana. Queens and New York are two of them.

Um, I personally know, and have worked with Dr. Lillian Stiegler, who was teaching this at Southeastern Louisiana, um, and have had numerous conversations with her about why this isn't being taught in graduate programs. But let me just kind of tell you where this all started from. Um, this research has been around since the seventies.

Dr. Ann Peters out of the university of Hawaii has a ton of published research in this area. And she's the one that [00:14:00] coined the term . Um, and Dr. Barry present also has a ton of research in this area, but his research is more with autistic individuals and we know. 75 to 85% of autistic individuals are gestalt language processors, and are more likely to be stuck in those earlier stages.

Um, which I'll talk about in a bit, um, But they are the ones that we often see in therapy that are unable to sort of move to self-generated language on their own. Now, a lot of neuro-typical children, which Anne Peters has talked a lot about in her research are also gestalt language processors, but they.

Oftentimes we'll move through the stages on their own. And it happens so fast that a lot of times we don't know they're installing which processors and March blank does talk about this in her book, which was published in 2012, the title is natural [00:15:00] language acquisition. And the book is based on present in Peter's research, but also Marge blanks, 20 years of longitudinal research.

And that is how she designed the. And LA and the natural language acquisition framework, which is, um, in quotes, the treatment framework for accolades. 

[00:15:22] Venita Litvack: Thank you for giving that background information. You had said that 75 to 80% of autistic children or individuals, our guests, all language processors. That is significant.

[00:15:34] Alexandria Zanchos: I actually think it's a higher, to be honest, but the research is old. 

[00:15:39] Venita Litvack: Okay. All right. Very, very fascinating. Um, so since this is really another way to learn language, when we think about. Children and early intervention who are delayed expressively, are they truly delayed or is it that they are [00:16:00] acquiring language differently?

And it just appears later on 

[00:16:05] Alexandria Zanchos: you're onto something. And this is what Marge talks about in her book. She has an example of, you know, two boys playing in the sandbox. A lot of times we identify boys as late talkers and they end up in EEI. I feel like a lot of those kids are gestalt language processors. And then all of a sudden we start hearing them talk at three or four, why's that happening?

Because they have not, motorically caught up to say they're long Gish Stalts and it sounds like they're, jargoning at two and a half, two years old when they're actually communicating English jobs when they do motorically get caught on. We're hitting upon three, three and a half, four years old. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, they're talking.

[00:16:56] Venita Litvack: Yeah, no, it's just super interesting. And I feel like we need early [00:17:00] markers for this population before, even the jargon, because I work in AI. I mean, I worked the whole lifespan, but I have kids who have yet to get the autism diagnosis. They're in the process of getting evaluated and they don't have.

Language or they have language, they, you know, will vocalize they'll gesture. They'll use facial expressions or introducing some AAC, but the traditional approach would be like you said, to start introducing single words. But if we had some early markers of this might be actually a guest, all language processor, they are possibly getting a diagnosis of ASD.

How should we approach therapy at this early, early stage? So it's just really fascinating. 

[00:17:42] Alexandria Zanchos: Yeah. Um, and I think the cool thing about this is the way that we approach. Uh, 16 year old is almost the same way we should approach a two year old and I'm going to get into that in a bit. But, um, first we have to build trust and rapport because a [00:18:00] lot of times these kids language has been ignored and they are.

Um, most, you know, told to ignore it or redirect it, um, especially our older kids, but really after we build that trust and rapport, it's about modeling scripts that we think they want to say. And they accept that language from. And then they start, you know, communicating with those scripts. Um, and so just like, um, kids need more words.

If they're analytic processors gift, shop processors need more scripts at the very beginning when they're in stage one. 

[00:18:41] Venita Litvack: All right. Awesome. Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on 

[00:18:44] Alexandria Zanchos: here before we move on? No, I think there's a lot to cover with this, but I think we're gonna at least, you know, give people a taste of it.

[00:18:54] Venita Litvack: Yeah. Yeah. This is just an overview, but there's so much more that can be. [00:19:00] So why is it important for SLPs to know about gestalt language processing? I think we've already kind of touched on it, but let's talk about this little. 

[00:19:07] Alexandria Zanchos: Yeah. I mean, I think the point that your listeners are going to realize I'm trying to drive home is that, um, analytic language development, um, If we approach all kids in that way, we are almost keeping our gestalt language processors stuck because those strategies and techniques do not work with them when they are in the early stages of echo Lelea.

Um, I've talked to hundreds of SLPs at this point that now have taken my course or, you know, have learned in other ways like Marge's book. Um, and they have said to me, Oh, my gosh. I spent years being frustrated with these kids years. Wondering why they were not moving forward, using all the strategies I had in my toolbox.

And they're almost angry that they [00:20:00] didn't know about this because. Um, you know, they weren't able to move the needle forward for these kids. So I'm pretty much on a mission right now than every speech pathologist who, you know, works in pediatrics, um, understands this at least has a surface level understanding of it and knows that, you know, all those analytic language strategies may not work with every kid that walks into their office.

And that's probably why they aren't seeing progress with a lot of kids. 

[00:20:34] Venita Litvack: Yeah, no. I mean, when I first saw you posting about this and started to like dive into this a little bit more immediately, I had like two evils and I'm like, oh my gosh, I believe both of these are default language processors. And it's just wild that like, if I had not been introduced to the.

You know, a month earlier that like the treatment would have been completely different for these children. Uh, the [00:21:00] one thing though, do you find that the process, like if parents don't put totally understand guests, salt, language, best salt language processing, how are they typically perceiving therapy? Do they feel like it, it takes longer than it should or.

I don't know. Do you know what I mean? 

[00:21:18] Alexandria Zanchos: I totally know what you mean. And I think a lot of it has to do. The parents' knowledge base and what the child's previous therapy was. So I'll just use, you know, my autistic, um, clients as an example, but if they've been through something like ABA or behavioral programming, verbal behavior is completely excuse me, based on the analytic model.

So they're trying to build up words. And so if that's what the parent knows. This is going to feel very strange to them, but my approach to anything and working with anyone in any parent is just to keep educating. [00:22:00] So, I mean, you mentioned this earlier Venita, but I have so many touts that my team and I created that can be shared with parents.

They're easily digestible. I want this to be accessible to everyone. People that don't even have a language background, like speech pathologists. So I think we just need to work with parents to get them to understand this. And I would say nine out of 10 parents. In my experience are so grateful and thankful and immediately say, yeah, this is my kid.

What you're describing is my kid. And then I think they go through those stages of grieving in a way to like, why did we do this? Why were we spinning our wheels? This is why, you know, we haven't made any progress because we've spent five years trying to force single words. 

[00:22:54] Venita Litvack: Yeah. And then one thing you talk about too, is that plateau, like, if you do go that approach then, [00:23:00] and it is a guest, all language processor, they ended up hitting this plateau because yeah.

Can you explain why that happens? 

[00:23:07] Alexandria Zanchos: Yeah. So, um, I'm not a big fan of the word functional. And a lot of times we're pushing. We need to give kids functional language, functional language. I look at that language as survival language. I need help. Um, that that's the kind of language I'm talking about. I want chips.

Um, I talk a whole ton about why this is not the direction we should be going in with kids because then we keep them. Stuck. And these kids are so brilliant, so smart. And if they're in programming, that's teaching them single words for survival language phrases. They they'll get it. They'll start seeing those things, but you know what?

They're never going to arrive to flexible original self-generated language. With that approach. Um, they will continue to stay [00:24:00] stuck in that survival language. Um, and I know that's a really bold statement, but it is it's, it's true. And I know that everyone listening knows kids like this and older kids like this that have not moved past.

Um, and I, I firmly believe that everyone is capable of flexible original language, which is stage four and beyond. Um, I think a lot of times, unfortunately we can hold kids back as parents and as therapists, by pushing certain approaches. 

[00:24:36] Venita Litvack: Yeah, well, and then just lack of knowledge of what else is available.

Thank you for spreading the word, but I think that's really important. The point that you just made that survival language is not functional language. So can you just, well, we're going to get into goal writing, right? So you're going to talk about on like the type of scripts that we should be introducing.

Okay, awesome. Um, I want to talk about the verbal behavior approach just [00:25:00] very briefly. Um, Kind of what I lost my thought for a second. This is what happens. You're going through a leap with a new baby. Um, but I have my big coffee to kind of help out. Um, I'll skip to my other question that I had, which is, do you ever hear about the relationship between like auditory processing disorder and guests thought language processing?

Because I'll just give you like some background information. There's a specific AAC. Implementation program out there that talks about how a large percentage of autistic individuals also have auditory processing difficulties and that it it's very difficult for them to break down like big chunks of language.

But the fact that. And it kind of sounds kind of silly saying this now, but the fact that they're the speech generating devices, save the words the same way every single time. There's not a, you know, a range of intonation that it actually makes it easier for them to [00:26:00] parse out the single words from those like longer phrases.

Have you ever heard 

[00:26:04] Alexandria Zanchos: of I'll you the complete opposite? Um, yeah. Well, first of all, I think auditory processing disorder is largely misunderstood in our field and that can be a topic for another time, but, um, auditory processing disorder actually needs to be diagnosed by an audiologist. And it is actually, you know, difficulty hearing certain sounds in things.

Um, language processing disorder is more what we should be calling a lot of this. Um, and I think that autistic individuals have been, um, misidentified as having difficulty a lot of times with language processing because people don't understand. Gestalt development. Um, and I would say that intonation is going to help an autistic individual more than something sounding [00:27:00] robotic.

[00:27:00] Venita Litvack: Hmm. That's so interesting. Thank you for sharing that. It's definitely, it gives you food for thought. And if anybody's familiar with which program I'm talking about, I'm sure the wheels are turning for them as well. So thank you for sharing that. Awesome. Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on here before we move on?

[00:27:21] Alexandria Zanchos: Nope, I, yeah. I think people are probably wanting to hear about some of the other things we keep saying. We're going to talk about. 

[00:27:28] Venita Litvack: Yeah, let's do it. I know. I feel like the we're like getting to the last, like, but it's like the big chunk of what, you know, people are here for. So what treatment strategies are recommended for this population?

[00:27:42] Alexandria Zanchos: Yeah. Um, so March blank created the natural language acquisition framework it's published in her book. Same title, natural language acquisition. Um, she coined that term because again, back to what we said, a few slides ago, gestalt development is [00:28:00] natural. It is a form of language development. And so she wanted people to know that this is a natural way to get to original, flexible language.

And like I mentioned, a lot of kids get there on their own. Even autistic kids can get there on their own. I had interviewed Courtney Johnson, she's on Instagram as just keep stimming. Um, she was in one of my lunch and learns, which is available with my course. And she basically told me, I think I got two original flexible language on my own.

Like. I don't think that anyone kind of walked me through these stages and I don't feel like that's unusual. A lot of individuals do get there. The kids that are landing on our caseload are not getting there on their own. So they are. Stuck in stages one or two, the first stage. Um, there, there are four main stages.

There's actually six, but the last two deal with [00:29:00] advanced grammar. So I don't always go into them. Um, but the way that the framework works is, um, Taking a lot of language samples as part of the assessment and determining which stage the child is mainly communicating in. Most kids are communicating in a, a mix of stages, but we want to try to figure out their main stage.

And that's where we can. Start focusing on how we're going to, um, model certain scripts in our sessions. Um, in stage one, echo, Lilia kids are doing exactly what it says. They're echoing, um, in those different ways I talked about earlier. So either that unintelligible language, which we're calling jargon in a lot of cases, um, we're hearing the shorter, longer scripts.

We're hearing stuck single words. This is all happening in states. By stage two, um, I call that the mix and match stage or partial mitigations kids are taking. [00:30:00] Um, chunks of that whole Gish doll and mixing and matching them. So they're kind of moving them around. So if you look at one, like, you know, uh, uh, Lego building, they're taking a couple pieces down and forming like another label building or another unit, um, And so, um, an example of that is I had a child that used to say all the time, don't worry, I'll help you find your mama.

And that was from Dora the Explorer, and it meant, oh, I'll help you find this game or we'll find whatever's lost. Um, and one day her mom came in inside, oh my goodness. You know, my mother-in-law's visiting. And she said, don't worry, I'll help you find grants. So she was able to like break off a chunk of Bakish doll and like mix in grandma, which was from another script that she had.

And so that was an indicator to us that she was ready to start mixing [00:31:00] and matching. Um, stage three is what I call them magic stage. And this is when kids start processing. Words as unit. So stage three is where a lot of our analytic processors start when they start talking, but it's almost like our gestalt processors have two extra stages to go through before they get there.

And so. Stage three is exactly what it says here at single words. And then it's combinations. So adjective plus now nonplus noun, and really helping the child pull down words from those partial scripts for those, um, whole Gish doll. Um, and then once it's clicked with them, okay. Words are using. And I'm able to combine words.

Then we get into stage four, which is beginning grammar and that self-generated language. So we're hearing things like I fall down now, how do I know that self-generating. Bad [00:32:00] grammar. I know that's not a script. The child put those three words together. Um, I featured a little girl in one of my Instagram videos a couple of weeks ago.

Her mom did a big testimonial for me. Um, her mom was really happy with the course and in the video we show of her being in stage four. She says, I think it'd be the baby's birthday. And I'm like, yeah, that like, that just screams stage four, like using that be in there and that bad grammar. And we know that's not a script that came from anywhere.

[00:32:34] Venita Litvack: Oh yeah. I remember when I took Marge's course that she said at this stage, a lot of people would get a little bit discouraged if they don't understand gestalt language processing, because it seems like the child actually took some steps back 

[00:32:48] Alexandria Zanchos: when in 

[00:32:48] Venita Litvack: reality, they're like, you know, moving right along through the stages.

[00:32:52] Alexandria Zanchos: Yeah, thank you for mentioning that because a lot of people in stage one are hearing that perfect language because [00:33:00] the child took the script from someone. So when they do hear, you know, about bad grammar and stage four, They're freaking out, like what happened to the perfectly language, but we want that we want the child to be expressing themselves with their own language and stages five and six is when we really start helping them with that more advanced grammar and, you know, getting the right tenses and everything in there.

[00:33:25] Venita Litvack: Okay. I have so many questions. 

[00:33:27] Alexandria Zanchos: I hope I can articulate all of them. It's a lot of information. No, it's 

[00:33:33] Venita Litvack: just so fascinating. So I guess I'll just start with the first one I just wrote when you are modeling scripts, do you provide visuals as well? And I'm, I want to get to like the difference between like introducing sentence strips versus like having a script of a functional.

[00:33:52] Alexandria Zanchos: So no sentence strips. We can get into that again some other time, but I do [00:34:00] not use visuals. I do not recommend that people use visuals. And I'll tell you why, because they're, these kids scripts are tied to an emotional experience. They have a visual already of what that word represents to them. And our visual may not be there.

If is. So I feel like the best way to explain, like why all we would do is model is think about where their scripts originally came from. They came from hearing them. So how are they going to get new scripts from hearing us? Their scripts didn't come from visuals. Like the ones they just picked up naturally.

I mean, maybe they were watching a show and now it's tied to that experience on the show. But you know, if they hear moms say time to put on your shoes and that's a script for any time they're leaving the house, there was no like visual attached to that, that mom flashed in front of [00:35:00] them. She just. So in this approach, we are naturally modeling scripts in child led therapy.

We are following the child's lead. We are not printing or laminating anything we have in mind, some scripts that, um, the child needs and we are naturally infusing them into the session. Okay. 

[00:35:29] Venita Litvack: Wow. Yeah. I mean, this is like probably 

[00:35:32] Alexandria Zanchos: blowing. I know I'm turning everything upside down for a lot of people. Um, but it's good.

We all thinking about all these things that we've been doing for years, and if they're really right for. 

[00:35:46] Venita Litvack: Yeah. And like the one thing I love about your pages and your course is all of these examples of video, examples of testimonials that it's not theoretical, you're putting it into practice and you're showing people how it [00:36:00] works.

Um, early like language skills. Even before, like expressive language, you know how you've seen the iceberg where it's like under like words and phrases and all of that. You have like joint attention and imitation, where do those come in with gestalt language processors? 

[00:36:17] Alexandria Zanchos: Um, those things start happening naturally when you start listening to the child and take a child led approach.

Um, and I, I have a lot of videos about this too. I just posted one last week about natural eye contact and I. Bingo, the bingo eye contact. I'm not forcing it. I did not write a goal on it, but because the child trusts me and I'm connected with them and I'm listening to them, I'm getting it frequently. And I captured one of my little guys giving me that eye contact and I, um, made a little reel about it, um, because.

In a lot of ways. What we've been doing is so [00:37:00] backwards. We're doing these adult directed sessions. We're trying to force joint attention force, eye contact when really like just listening to the child, hearing their spontaneous language, figuring out their special interests and letting them lead the session is naturally going to help those things evolve.

And 

[00:37:18] Venita Litvack: it makes so much sense because I'm just thinking about my daughter and she's 14, almost 15 months. And I know that one of the things that people talk about is that, you know, they need to be able to imitate, but I found like early, early on, like at five months, six months, I had to start imitating her.

And this wasn't even me, to be honest, this was my husband imitating like silly things. She would do like little sounds, little like dinosaur sounds. That's when, like she kind of opened up to us and then started imitating. And so, yeah, I see goals for imitation or I'll see, you know, You know, in verbal behavior that the child needs to be able to imitate.

And it's like, wait, we have [00:38:00] to imitate them first. And like you said, engage in child led play and those things will kind of happen naturally. 

[00:38:06] Alexandria Zanchos: So one of them with your daughter? Absolutely. And I think, um, a lot of people I've talked to have told me, wow, you know, this feels intuitive. This feels right. But I think unfortunately, With everything that we've been taught over the years and absorbed, we don't listen to our intuition.

So probably your husband. I don't know what his background is, but not having that speech and language background. It probably felt intuitive to him to imitate. That's 

[00:38:40] Venita Litvack: such a good point because he does do such a better job. I felt like, you know, originally at just getting her engaged with us, um, he would just do like the silliest things or just like imitate her.

And I was like, oh wow, like she's doing more for you than she liked it for me. And now it's like totally different, but yeah, no, that's a really good point. [00:39:00] And I remembered what I wanted to say about the verbal behavior versus modeling. And because we were talking about like how parents perceive this approach, because it can seem like it's taking longer because with the verbal behavior approach, for example, and I don't know it very well.

So if anybody is very well-versed and then, um, I'm just going to disclose that I'm not super familiar with it, but. I just remember, like there was, you know, where you would start with one word and then you get to two and three and you're showing parents like, wow, they can make like a five word utterance very quickly.

Right. 

[00:39:34] Alexandria Zanchos: Um, and 

[00:39:36] Venita Litvack: whereas with modeling, like we're doing a lot of modeling, but there's no guarantee of exactly when the child is going to start imitating those 

[00:39:43] Alexandria Zanchos: scripts. Yeah, correct. And I think with a lot of our kids, there's a lot of fun learning based on what they had previously experienced with therapy or at school.

And so it takes a lot longer to build that trust that we're [00:40:00] actually listening to them and listening to their spontaneous communication. And, um, I've had such a variety. I've worked with a lot of kids in stage one and, um, you know, Three four or five months, it took for one child to start, you know, um, even saying any of the scripts that I had been modeling, but, you know, given his history, I was not surprised a lot of times there are other things involved as well.

Today we did. Big posts on. I know it's not when this is going to air, but, um, so I'll just say Jan, late January did a post on motor speech and scripting or motor planning. So dyspraxia could be in the way for some kids, other sensory integration. There are other things that play oftentimes for why we're not seeing, you know, things moving.

But I think again, just back to this education piece, I think once the parents [00:41:00] understand, okay, this is who my child is. It's not what was taught to me before. So I'm not going to expect the five word utterance. Cause even if I hear it, that's not original language. So isn't our end goal for any of our children that they, you know, have B have the ability to express novel thoughts and desires and, uh, things beyond wants and needs.

System for survival. So, you know, when I frame it like that for parents, it's like what parent doesn't have that goal for their child. Of course they want their child to be able to express themselves in that way and not just be reliant on some functional phrases. Yeah. When 

[00:41:43] Venita Litvack: you were going to talk about goal writing, so maybe we can touch on this when we get there, but what kind of progress are you seeing on those early goals?

Like you said, Child for instance, that it took like three months for him to start of him or her to start imitating 

[00:41:58] Alexandria Zanchos: those scripts. Um, [00:42:00] it's so crazy because I had seen one child, but I called pure because he never had any kind of therapy. He was just at home with his parents. Um, and he flew through all the stages and got to stage four and 600.

Wow. Um, but then I feel like unfortunately with a lot of kids that end up at my clinics are coming from elsewhere and have not had very good experiences a lot of times where the clinic that they call when they weren't happy elsewhere. Um, and so they, um, It's almost like they have to go through this whole period of like unlearning, like the whole tabletop forced adult directed approach.

A lot of them are scared to come into therapy, like they have trauma. Um, and so I think taking all those factors into account. Things might take a little bit longer, but for these quote unquote pure [00:43:00] kids that have not had exposure to a lot of this other stuff, I think once this approach is put in place by the families and the therapist, you start seeing changes immediately.

[00:43:13] Venita Litvack: That's so interesting that you gave the example of the child that had no previous exposure. How many of your kids, like I know you said a lot of them you'll find the scripts from like videos that they've seen. How many are like scripting from nursery rhymes. Do you find. 

[00:43:27] Alexandria Zanchos: That's really common with younger and Arcus shop processors are very musical.

I have a series of posts about that as well. Um, so music is like a great way to introduce new scripts to I'm not musical at all, but I have found that a lot of kids. I don't care that I can't really sing. Um, I'm imitating them and it's fun for them. And in fact, the video I talked about earlier that I posted last Friday, I'm singing the ABCs and the child's so happy and giving me [00:44:00] this great eye contact and I sound terrible, but again, they don't.

They don't care. 

[00:44:06] Venita Litvack: That's a really good example. So just for instance, if you're doing a nursery rhyme, like, you know how typically we'll like pot, like if we've been modeling the nursery room for a while, we'll typically pause for like a one word. Do we pause for like the grays 

[00:44:20] Alexandria Zanchos: of so CLO closed phrase strategy that's for analytic processors?

I do not recommend that for good shop processors, because again, what are we trying to get a single word? Yeah, it goes against a lot of what we were talking about. So it's so hard, right? To like undo your brain when you've been thinking about things in that fashion for so long. But it's, I think the best way to think about it is what is my end goal here.

And my end goal is not that they're filling in the blank. 

[00:44:54] Venita Litvack: So we're not like fading that prompting until we start even like I'm talking about [00:45:00] early, early until we even get to like the echo Lelea stage. Right? 

[00:45:03] Alexandria Zanchos: Well, everyone's in the echo Lelea stage at the beginning, if they're just Shaw processors. And when you start looking at things through that lens, it's like, what does that look like for them?

Is it the jargoning is it, what are they doing verbally? And if they're completely non-speaking and nothing's happening verbally at all, then we need to explore more the dyspraxia. Okay. 

[00:45:29] Venita Litvack: All right. Super, super interesting. Um, uh, one thing I wanted to say too is when we were talking about like the different stages.

So when you get to the single words and combinations personally, like with the two clients that I was working with, I felt like it was really difficult to tell if they were getting to that single words and combinations because of those stuck single words. Right. So. Yeah. How do you 

[00:45:59] Alexandria Zanchos: [00:46:00] figure that out? So I think that it's through a lot of language samples and I talk about redundancy, not repetition, and that came from March blank, but, um, we want to try to vary in little ways.

Like, whatever the experiences. Um, so, you know, if we're playing with cars, we don't want to play with the cars the same in the same spot, in the same way, every time. Um, so we're gonna, you know, model the script by the door and then maybe I'm the floor. And then. The red cars and then next time with the trucks.

So it's not just attached to like one thing for them. Um, and you can play around with that, with those stuck single words. So are they coming up in the same way at the same time? All the time, it's likely a stage one script, but if it's stage three, you're going to see a [00:47:00] lot more variety. Okay. All right.

That's a really 

[00:47:04] Venita Litvack: good distinction. Thank you for that. Okay. Yeah. I'm sure that other people will have questions too, but you covered a lot of what I 

[00:47:12] Alexandria Zanchos: wrote down. I keep mentioning this there's 18 hours of continuing. Yeah. There's so much information here. And then I tell people to then go take Marge. Just released her.

Stage three or I'm sorry, her level three NSS course on Northern speech that is this massive deep dive. Um, and so it's like, there's never ending amounts to learn about this, but I don't want people to get overwhelmed. I just want them to know this is a real thing and that if they can just have a surface level understanding of it, that would be great.

Yeah. And then when 

[00:47:47] Venita Litvack: you see that type of client to start diving in a little bit more, Um, all right, so let's talk about goal writing for this 

[00:47:54] Alexandria Zanchos: population. So the thing that I, that I really am trying to drive home with [00:48:00] people is once you understand the stages, bull riding is so easy. If you understand the main stage the child is communicating in.

And again, how are you going to know that you're going to know that through tons of language samples that you've scored and I teach you how to do that. The assessment module, module three. I don't know if you've gone through that one yet, but I have a lot of examples of clients and we even practice scoring together.

Um, and so you're going to have an idea of how to score these language samples. You're going to figure out what stage the child is mainly communicating in. Cause there might be a few different stages there, and then you're going to write a goal for that. So. Let's go back to my little guy that I talked about.

Having a, showing a video with his special interests was letters. He's stage one. So my goal with him and with our stage one kiddos is they need more scripts, just [00:49:00] like analytic language, processors, need more words are stage one, kids need more strips. And I share some handouts in the course on this. I'm not looking at things through the same lens, that behavior Asar, where they're saying, oh, we need to Mand Intacct or request and comment.

I look at different categories that would make sense for kids to have language in. So some of the categories might be sensory motor. Experiences transitions help, um, having fun with someone, um, surprises. So we look at all those categories and we try to figure out, do they have scripts in these categories?

And if not, that's gonna be. One thing we're going to model picking scripts in those categories. The other huge piece is the detective work, the scripts that they have and what they're saying now, where did they come from? What do they mean for them? So, you know, don't worry, I'll help you find [00:50:00] your mama. I might be modeling in that case.

Um, we're gonna find it. Because that's really what she's telling me. Um, and that is a great script for her to have because it's easily mitigable. And what does that mean? Those words can get mixed and matched when they're in stage. Certain scripts are not very easy to mitigate. Um, and so, you know, like to infinity and beyond what are, what are you going to mix and match there and does that even have a place in our everyday conversation?

So we want kids to have scripts that they can easily mitigate when they get to stage two. Um, and so kind of using those guidelines, thinking about the categories and then thinking about what they truly want to say, and it might take some trial and error with that. We don't always know what scripts mean.

I talk about parents a [00:51:00] lot being the experts, and if we can looking toward parents and asking them. What do you think this script means? Where do you think this came from? And so a combination of those things are going to help us come up with, let's say three, four or five scripts. We're going to model in a child led session.

And there's our goal, you know, three to five new gestalts. Um, and so how, you know, why. Are people finding goal writing difficult because they don't understand the stages. They don't understand all of this, but if you go through the whole course, I promise you you're going to come away. Totally understanding how to do this.

[00:51:42] Venita Litvack: Yeah. Wow. That's like, this is just super helpful. So where does social skills come into play with this? Are you writing 

[00:51:52] Alexandria Zanchos: well, so I'm not writing any goals for anything like that until kids are self-generating because [00:52:00] my ultimate goal is that we're to the point where they have their own language and, you know, like we talked about earlier, all that social stuff is naturally evolving in a child led session.

Anyway, so that is happening. Um, um, as we're hitting on these other things, 

[00:52:21] Venita Litvack: Totally makes sense. Oh my gosh, Alex, this has been incredible. I wanted to just like, I don't. Do you have anything else that you want to share about this before I tell a little story? 

[00:52:33] Alexandria Zanchos: No. I just wanted to say, I know I keep sending people back to my course, but I want to tell you all, there are a lot of really good resources out there.

And I have a huge list on my website for free that you can download a lot of webinars on YouTube that marsh has done that are free. There are so many ways right now for you to learn this so happened, meaningful speech.com and grab that free PDF of resources. [00:53:00] 

[00:53:01] Venita Litvack: Thank you so much for that. And we'll have a handout attached to this course as well.

It's available for anybody that registers for their certificate or CE processing, but, um, have you ever seen love on the spectrum? 

[00:53:15] Alexandria Zanchos: No, but I've heard about, and I need to watch. Yeah, there's 

[00:53:19] Venita Litvack: one guy. I can't remember his name, but he shared a statement and this reminds me a lot of gestalt language processing.

And it makes me think that he was a gestalt language processor. He said that when he was younger, he wasn't very verbal and he didn't start talking until later. And it was his love for dinosaurs that really allowed him to develop language. So I just think that gave like a really good. The 

[00:53:45] Alexandria Zanchos: example of like 

[00:53:47] Venita Litvack: child led intervention.

He was obviously very interested in about buying the source and it helped him to learn to generate novel utterances. 

[00:53:55] Alexandria Zanchos: Eventually that's an awesome example. So 

[00:53:59] Venita Litvack: if anybody hasn't [00:54:00] seen it highly recommend it. It's a really good show. Um, awesome. Well, here's your list of references and there's so, so many more.

I know the handout includes more as well, but anybody wants to take a screenshot of this. If they're designed to dive in right now, go ahead and do that. If not, it will be available in the handout or on the platform. And where can everybody find and connect with you? Is Instagram the best place? Uh, I know you haven't been in your website is.

[00:54:28] Alexandria Zanchos: Yes, Instagram is the best place I'm very active on there. I do have a Facebook page. I will fully admit I do not do a lot with it except maybe share what I post on Instagram. Um, I'm just not on there. Um, at all, March blank does have a Facebook group called the NLA study group. It is really for people that have more than a basic.

The standing of this and kind of want to talk about topics a little bit more in depth. My Instagram is really for anyone that [00:55:00] wants to learn about this, um, from beginning to advanced, um, you can find my course and a lot more info about all of this@meaningfulspeech.com. And then I also have a registry of people who have taken the course and pass the.

Exam, um, that are listed as providers for parents to connect with. Um, and it's worldwide in that you can find that@meaningfulspeechregistry.com and if you are an SLP or an SLPA, and you're interested in learning about this and you want to take on some clients in this area, you can definitely take the course in the exam and then, um, have the opportunity to be listed on the register.

[00:55:44] Venita Litvack: Awesome. Thank you so much.