Abstract
Many language development programs are available for preschool and elementary school children. A number of communication intervention programs are also available for adolescents who have multiple support needs and intellectual impairment. In contrast, relatively few language programs are available that address multiple language needs of adolescents with developmental language disorders (DLD).
Much of Marilyn Nippold’s research has focused on development, assessment, and intervention of language in adolescents. She has developed protocols for eliciting language samples from adolescents that promote their use of more complex syntactic patterns. Her protocols for eliciting expository and persuasive language are available on the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) website (https://www.saltsoftware.com/studies). Compared to the language samples students produce in conversation or when telling a story, students are highly likely to produce more complex syntactic patterns when explaining how to play a game or how to persuade someone in response to prompts about allowing students to listen to music on headphones during free periods at school, giving students money for good grades, or changing access to social media or violent games.
In recent years, Nippold has expanded her research beyond a focus on students’ development of structural aspects of language to their development of critical thinking. She defines critical thinking as a metacognitive activity that requires one to evaluate the evidence that supports or refutes an assertion, reflecting on the available information; to determine one’s own beliefs, distinguishing them from the beliefs of others; and to manage one’s own thoughts (Nippold & Marr, 2022). Critical thinking is essential if persons are to manage their lives by making informed decisions. The requirement for critical thinking pervades the Common Core State Standards (CCSS; https://corestandards.org). In middle school, students are expected to engage in discussions, building on one another’s ideas. They must be able to determine the soundness of a speaker’s argument by evaluating the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence presented. And, of course, they must be able to provide well-organized and supportive arguments for their own ideas. Little research has been conducted on how critical thinking changes as children mature or how it interacts with later developing spoken and written language skills. To address this deficient in the research literature, Nippold conducted a series of studies using fables to explore the development of critical thinking.
Nippold and Marr (2022) suggested fables are appropriate for working with adolescents for several reasons:
Fables convey a lesson or moral message about life. Fables often involve more abstract language. The moral message is often a proverb, a type of figurative expression that states an opinion by commenting on a situation, giving advice, or warning of danger.
They are relatively free of cultural and linguistic bias. They have been translated into different languages and are not tied to any particular location or period in history.
Fables address complex aspects of human natures, such as pride, greed, humility, deception—concepts that become increasingly understandable during adolescence.
Nippold’s first study using fables investigated if retelling fables would elicit greater syntactic complexity than general conversation. Finding were consistent across older and younger children, including those with DLD. Students employed greater syntactic complexity (MLCU; and clausal density CD) when retelling fables than in standard conversational tasks (Nippold, 2014). Nippold suggested this more complex syntax when retelling the fables was due to the sophisticated nature of the fables, which had abstract themes of fear, goodwill, pretense, pride, trust, and wisdom that required the students to tap into their cognitive and linguistic resources more fully than conversations.
In the next study (Nippold et al., 2015), immediately after each adolescent had retold a fable the examiner presented a critical-thinking task, which consisted of a set of questions to determine if the adolescent agreed or disagreed with the moral message and to explain why. The critical-thinking task was used to determine how well the adolescents understood the deeper meanings of the fables and their morals, and whether the set of questions would elicit greater syntactic complexity than the conversational task. Results indicated that the adolescents understood the critical-thinking questions quite well (mean accuracy = 80%), that most agreed with the moral messages of the fables, and that both indices of syntactic complexity, MLCU and CD, were significantly greater during the critical-thinking task compared to the conversational task. In a 2020 article, Nippold et al. (2020) provided a coding system for evaluating the quality of students’ explanations of the moral of the fables:
0. No evidence of critical thinking: irrelevant, vague, or does not understand the story or moral.
1. Concrete thinking: relevant but does not go beyond the story.
2. Emergent critical thinking: relevant; goes beyond the story to express a general truth; but unelaborated (offers only one or two different points to support own view).
3. Intermediate critical thinking: relevant; goes beyond the story to express a general truth; and elaborated (offers three or more different points to support own view).
4. Advanced critical thinking: relevant; goes beyond the story to express a general truth; and offers one or more specific real-world examples to support own view.
In an effort to address the lack of materials to teach critical thinking, Nippold and Marr (2022) designed the language arts program, Philosophy for Adolescents. [The program is available as a supplement to the article. If one is a member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association or has access to a university library system, the article and program can be accessed.] In addition to critical thinking, the program addresses multiple language goals (increased syntactic complexity, story grammar, and vocabulary), which are foundational skills for employing critical thinking.
Designed for students ages 12–17 years, the program consists of 40 fables attributed to the Greek storyteller Aesop. Because fables are narratives, the program employs principles of narrative intervention that research has shown to be effective with students who have typical or disordered language development. The program is best conducted with groups of 2–4 students. It employs the ingredients that research studies have shown lead to successfully teaching critical thinking. This includes the combination of explicit instruction, mentoring from an experienced teacher, open dialogue between teacher and student, frequent practice sessions over time, and application to real-world situations. Philosophy for Adolescents employs a form of the Socratic dialogue, a process where a teacher asks thoughtful questions in an effort to learn what a student thinks about an issue, the student’s reasons for holding those beliefs, and the evidence that led to those conclusions. Students are encouraged to reflect on their own assumptions and to distinguish between what they actually know (facts) and what they think may be true (opinions). Instead of teachers telling students what to believe, as in traditional didactic teaching, teachers employing the Socratic method assist students to clarify their own views by modeling (e.g., “I wonder why some people take things that don’t belong to them”).
The 40 fables are arranged in a sequence from easier to more difficult, based on their Flesch-Kincaid readability level (Microsoft Word, 2019), Grades 3 through 8 (readable levels are on each fable). However, some “easier” fables from a readability standpoint may actually be more difficult than others because they contain more challenging concepts. Each lesson includes a fable, a story grammar graphic organizer for retelling the fable, eight questions (four requiring inferencing, particularly about mental states of the characters; and four requiring critical thinking about the moral of the story), and sets of sentences for combining practice to produce sentences with subordinate clauses.
The following are the steps for each fable:
The speech-language pathologist (SLP) reads the fable, while students follow along on their copies.
Each story has a number of bolded words and expressions that the students and SLP are to discuss. For example, highlighted vocabulary in the Tortoise and Hare story included plodded, with a start, amused, wager. When relevant, discussion also includes morphological analysis of the words.
Students fill out a story grammar graphic organizer, writing notes under each story grammar element. Students and instructor discuss each story grammar element, especially the thoughts, feelings, motivations, and goals of the characters.
Students take turns retelling the fable aloud. They use the notes on the story grammar graphic organizer during the retelling.
Once students can retell the fable accurately and completely in their own words (not verbatim), they are asked the critical-thinking questions. Questions 1–4 require story comprehension and inferential ability. The SLP notes the accuracy in which the student answers the questions based on the story content, for example,
Why did the hare enjoy making fun of the tortoise? How did the tortoise feel about the hare’s negative comments? Why did the hare accept the offer to run a race? How did the tortoise feel when he crossed the finish line ahead of the hare?
If the student does not answers these questions well, they will have difficulty answering Questions 5–8 that pertain to the theme and moral message of the fable. This story is about confidence, a condition where people feel good about their skills and believe in themselves. What can happen when people overestimate their skills or have too much confidence in themselves? Do you agree or disagree with the moral of this story, “Slow and steady wins the race?” Why do you agree (or disagree)? Can you think of a situation in real life where the moral would apply?
Strong answers to Questions 5-8 will involve stating multiple reasons for why the student agrees or disagrees and offering one or more examples of where the moral would or would not apply in real life situations. Socratic discussions are particularly important in this step. The SLP notes how well the student answers these questions, elaborates on the details, and shows originality. SLPs can use the Nippold et al. (2020) coding system to evaluate students’ explanations of the fables’ morals. Sharing this rubric with students can enable them to better understand what should be included in their explanations.
Students complete sentence combining activities that focus on three types of subordinate clauses. The students repeat each simple sentence, then the combined complex sentence:
The hare teased the tortoise. The tortoise was slow on his feet. The hare teased the tortoise who was [relative] slow on his feet. The hare believed in himself. He could win the race. The hare believed that he could win [nominal] the race. The tortoise ran slowly. The hare ran quickly. Although the tortoise ran [adverb] slowly, the hare ran quickly.
Last school year, I supervised a clinical fellow (first year speech-language pathologist) who used Nippold’s fable program at a charter high school for indigenous students. The program enabled us to address the students’ multiple IEP (Individualized Educational Program) language goals. They engaged in discussions of the fables’ morals. The SLP kept a folder of the students’ responses for each fable so that the students could track their development over time. The program was also useful for the SLP. It provided the SLP with a framework for integrating students’ language goals and providing students with lessons that encouraged their participation in functional language tasks.