2018 National Conference Adelaide

Featured Presenters

Wednesday 30 May

11.00am – 12.30pm continued 2.00pm – 3.30pm

W1A – Keynote Seminar Presentation: Supporting knowledge in language and literacy: A narrative-based language intervention program (S) This seminar will be co-presented by Dr Ron Gillam and Dr Sandra (Sandi) Gillam

This seminar will describe a narrative instruction program called Supporting Knowledge in Language and Literacy (SKILL) that is based on the Kintsch model of language comprehension. The fully-manualised SKILL

• Graphic organisers that represent critical story elements • Explicit instruction that highlights the use of literate language in the context of complex narrative discourse (e.g., Tier Two vocabulary, adverbial clauses) • Discussions about comprehension and memory strategies • Practice answering questions about, retelling, and creating stories. In a series of single-subject, multiple-baseline studies and in a small-scale RCT, these instructional strategies have proven to be beneficial to children with developmental language disorders, children learning English as a second language, and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. We are currently conducting a three-year, multi-site RCT to test the outcomes of the intervention and potential generalisation to reading comprehension and writing. Learning objectives for the seminar: At the culmination of this session, participants will be able to: • Describe the important characteristics of the Kintsch model of language comprehension • Summarise the three phases of the SKILL narrative language intervention program • Explain the evidence demonstrating the feasibility of the program for various types of children with language disorders • Discuss the key elements of the program and why it has a positive effect on narrative comprehension and production. Prerequisites for registrants / assumed knowledge or skill base when attending the seminar: Participants should have basic knowledge of narrative macro structure (story grammar propositions), complex sentence structure, and language intervention principles. Disclosure: Sandi and Ron Gillam are co-authors of Supporting Knowledge of Language and Literacy (SKILL), which will be described in this presentation.

Dr Sandra (Sandi) Gillam - co-presenter Sandra Laing Gillam is a Professor in the

narrative instruction program consists of three phases: Phase I: Teaching Story Structure and Causal language;

Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education at Utah State University and the outgoing Vice President for Speech Language Pathology Practice for the American Speech Language and Hearing Association (ASHA). Since coming to Utah State, she has received numerous awards and honors including being named ASHA Fellow, Outstanding Alumnus, Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year, and Outstanding Researcher of the Year. She earned her BS and MS degrees in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology at Auburn University and began her career as a speech language pathologist in public schools. Dr Gillam obtained her Doctorate at The University of Memphis and began her academic career at The University of Alabama. She currently teaches courses in language development and disorders, assessment and intervention for language disorders, and professional issues. Her research interests include language and literacy impairments, diverse populations and comprehension. Dr Gillam has received funding for her research from the Institute of Education Sciences.

Phase II: Teaching Strategies for Creating a Situation Model; and Phase III: Teaching Strategies for Integration into Long TermMemory (Gillam, Gillam & Laing, 2014). Phase I procedures were designed to assist the student in organising and constructing a “textbase” of information contained in propositions or meaning units across a story. Phase II activities are designed to teach linguistic structures, concepts, and vocabulary in more elaborate, complex stories. The procedures in Phase II were designed to stabilise the student’s textbase representation and to foster the creation of a situation model for later integration into long-term memory. Phase III contains twelve lessons that give students multiple opportunities to retell, create, tell, edit and revise their own spontaneously generated stories with and without icon and graphic organiser support. The major focus of Phase III is to provide students with opportunities to develop independence in their understanding and use of narrative structure and oral language relevant to coherent stories (connecting terms, causal language, mental state terms). Additionally, lessons were designed to foster meta-cognitive skills necessary for students to judge the adequacy of their own stories. Original wordless books are used to teach text structure and oral language supporting comprehension and production of stories. After these introductory sessions for each lesson are completed, children’s trade books are used to facilitate generalisation of newly learned skills. Lessons progress in each phase, resulting in the use of literature-based activities that are closely aligned to the rigorous texts used in general education classrooms. Key components of the SKILL program described in this presentation include: • The use of story structure models

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