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With a little bit of help - An earlylanguage training kit

Piathibha Karanth*

Abstract

Clinicions in the field of communication disorders in India haue for

long struggled with a lack of suitable clinical material both for testing and

interuention. Our dependence on western material continues.yablte!

despite thteir being unsuit:able dute to cultursl considerations ond their high

cosls. Con, equently most clinicians make do without odeguate therapeutid

suitable materiql or expend their precious time, which would otherwise be

expended in constructive therapeutic work, in preparing bosic material.

Tiis pap", presents the results of a coordinated eft'ort to deuelop suitable

and affordable materials for early language training thot can be used ocross

India. The material that was deubloped with input from practicing clinicians

from the specialities of speech'language pathology, linguistics, clinical

psychology and special education was field tested in ten different sfotes in-ten

differe.nt Indian languages, edited subsequently and finally compiled in

the form of a ktt with a manual of instructions'

Introduction

Rehabilitators, special educbtors and. educators conventionally depend on

teaching aids in the practice of their profession' In countries where these

disciplines have existed and been suppor[ed, over a period of time there is

easy access to a plethora of ready to use evaluation and educational material'

In India we have been plagued by the problem of restricted access to the very

iirtfit"atgenous material and are forced to spend considerable time and

effort in putting together material that is necessary for our day-to-day work'

Rehabilitators are seldom conversant with the formal aspects of language and

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iournal ol Rehabilitation counc.ll ol lruiia, volume 3, No- I t;2 ';ai''' - ',ec'Ll';

it'steachingdespitebeing{luentsllakersthemsehes'lt1th;reforeimportantfor them to have

";:;'t; to hnguage tmining. material that has been

preparecl by experts a'-'d is adequately t*:t"t:"tYt ..

The earb language training material O*:10:O T::^l"t

developed'to

meet the need for i;gu''ou' training material' to serve as core teaching

material in 10 I"d;; iu''nuunu' being spoken across the country at an

affordable price. ThJ *utniut hu, bne' designed as an aid for rehabilitators

and educators involved in ieaching language"to'h: :"ryytcatively disabled

suchasthehearingimpaired,themer}tal.lyretar{ed.thelanguage_leamingdisabledandothercommunicativelydisabledpopulations.Thematerialcanbeused within

" *id;;;";oi upp*tt'ns to language *"11o0

ranging from

programmed instruction to stimulatory methods' It is Jlexible enough to be

usedwlthinavarietyofiherapeuticapproachesandtecr'rrrrques,depending.onthetheoreticaloutiookoftheciinicianandherc|i i ;r ice'. l i isareadysourceofmateria! covering ;; u'p*tt' o{ language us]ns niluls that are simple

linedrawingsdevelopedinordertorneet:thigreorrirelelrtsofboththetypically;;;";";t* u'i .n"'at*uted' ruml and urban,

Tt:l':::Sincetraininginphonologyiscomparativelybetterestablishedinlndia,

the focus he,e t'ai in"t' * '"#ntit' and svltax'-1:::"tt covered under

semanticsarelexicalcategories,polarquest ions'paradigmaticrelat ions,

syntagmatic relations, semJntic similarity and contigurty, semantic anomaly

and antonyms' Those covered under sVntax include,plurals'

tenses' person

numberandgendermarkers,transitive,intransitivesandcausatives,affilmatives,

negatives,andintenogauve,'co*pu,ativ.s,conditionals,conjunctives,quotatives

and ParticiPial constructions'

everyday life situations and compared with peers'

Aim

Todevelopan-exhaust iveyets i rnp let rq in ingk i t for .ear ly languageacquisition, in ten nii* f""g"aSes, for ghildren with cornmunicltion 1ttd9t9'

that is culturally ,.ritubl" to t=f,e j.aian context, both urban and rural and can

be used across India

Ideally prior to trainins the child $:.uld be evaluated "i:

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Method

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10 Journal of Rehabilitation Council of India' Volume 3' No' 1 & 2 Jan' - Dec'-2OO7

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iintil then largely restricted to articulatory phonetics and vocabulary buildingexpanded to include training in syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Essentiallythe move was from a restricted focus on speech sound production to theinclusion of the complex aspects of language snch as the rules that govemsentence structures; word meanings and their inter relationships both withinthemselves and with refercnce to external objects and events; the use oflanguage in social contexts, in the narration of events and the exchange ofinformation.

In the West this led to the production of a spate of assessment procedures

and aids for clinical training in the various aspects of language (Crystal, Fletcher& Garman, 1989, Semel & Wiig, 2000)- In India there has scarcely been anywork on these lines. Indian clinicians have had to depend on western tools,

which are both linguistically and culturally inappropriate not to mention the

expense. In addition, evaluation tools and training material developed for a

specific langtnge cannot be direc& translattzd into a language that is structurally

different from the original as is the case with lndian languages vis a vis English.

The numerous languages spoken in this country and the lack of explicit

knowledge of their iinguistic strucfures, on the part of our clinicians and trainers

have further compounded the problem.

It was within this background that the current project to develop language-

training materials at the different linguistic levels in 1Q Indian languages was

undertaken. Given that most of the Indian languages belong to either the

Indo -Aryan or Dravidian family it was decided to simultaneously develop the

language training aids in a few major languages from both groups to

economise on time, personnel and finance. The languages short listed on the

basis of expertise available were Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam,

Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu-

The language training material was developed in three phases. trn Phase

I a workshop was conducied to prepare the material within the framework

,-, of the Unguistic Profile Test [PT, Karqnth 1984). Twenty three professionals

drawn from the disciplines of Speech-Language Pathology, Special Education,

Linguistics, Psychology and Education, with expertise in language testing,/training

and material production, participated- These profes5ionals'also represented

the many languages in which the teaching aids were proposed to be developed'

Wiihin the framework provided by the LPT items for each of the subsections

rr i i le Siernarntics ar,t 5ynta;' l sectiotis lveie i isied wil ir ar: L:iJi lru'.r,r ' i i i* iaiiu

of 1:10; that is {or eaun iic,,r listeci in the LPT we iisted abor':; -lf i;;ii1'1;'r}:r"

The criteria for item selection were that it should be a commorl one ttrd{ i5

found in everyday usage and should be unambiguously picturable in a line

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drawing. During this workshop u tolul- of approximately 600 unambiguously

picturable linguistic t;;;'t' ot tr'n t: t"::-'i::.::: **outo

InF}rasell thematerialpreparedinthel0languages^wascompiiedirr

a master chart listing items comm:n to:'uii fO iury*gn:' Scme items such

as those fo' mo'phopholTi'.,*1"::t were found to be numerous in

languages Hk" r<""ruJ. and Tamil but not so for some of the other languages

and therefo'e tr'ese--'Jel" a,oop"a ftt* ;; ;astel li:l: Similarlv items for

synonvms u'ta no-oli'i'-*"'" "r'o rounJ .o 9

r'* ]'ansuase-

specific

and were therefore..*rira from the .*n list' The rnister chart comptising

about 850 stimuli *"'';ti"O O' lt"n'*t ; compreheneiveness' These items'

;;;' to ur r o'i;'' g;; ":::: ::;:-':":n:il";:5:J;::*iylli; illdrawings. A manual o{ instructions was

tt lt#t;:-eriar was rhen fierd tested in different parts of the country' A

detailed set of instructions was giu"r, to it'," field testers who were postgraduate

students o{ spnn.nlil"n "n p",hd?gy, ;rchologg, and Linguistics' The field

t es t swereca r r i ed* . " " rooch i l d ren in theagerangeo f3 - t3yea rs ,20children titf' fu''E'a"gl'atiitt-'ft* "*,10

adults (10 literate and 10 non literate)

for each of the ,d;;r**s. Thl fieldiurting was coordinated and supervised

by the 10 expert;;;t;*t' :t Y i"t 'i"'rtti'op' who remained activelv

involvedintheProject , throughout i tsdurat ion 's incethef ie ld test ing inAssamese *"' ;;;;;'id' it was

9:ooono from the final list of 1o languages

and was replaced by English t *rtic; we had developed the original list as

itnfoft is wideb used in urban lndia'

In Phase II a second workshop was held Yl*:t: the feedback from the

fieldtesters*u,,"uin*edandthemasterl isteditedtoexcludeall i temsthatwere found t. u"-.*uiguous unazo, ir,.ppropriate during field-testing' For

example, t}re picture for the itu.n .iJ" i, *u,r'i"g the clothes'' showed a

womaninanuprightposit ionbeatingtheclothes3n-a|oneplaced2-3fee|above the nr"r;;';r; comrnonly dor,. in south India. This picture was

found inapp,oo,i*n during lield testing in the northem parts of the country

where it is mor" .o**on to squat orl,rru floor and beat the clothes on the

f loorwi thapieceofwood.Snuu,u lp l . t . ' res:hadtoberedrawn.Af ina lsetof 664 illustrations was accepted by all coordinators'

Themanualofinstructionswasalsorevisedonthebasisofthefeedbackreceived.

Specific instructions for each:"0:"11 ":: ::":-:?::J*iHX :":':1*"-:f;T;:'li:'i:T"#'"-:;';";;;';.''L,:i:,':.:i j"*:T::i.::"::1;XJ?: ;.,ffi u,1";; ";;;"' varleri ": ?: .,-:::- :: :Y:i3"i",'ff; T;:ili: T,ff":: ffi ffi;;;';;Kl l ls . t luzse are rrv l v-- - . . - - - -

1 & 2 Jan- _ Dec._2OO7

12 Journal ot n"t''utrTillTllit of India' Volume 3' No' 1 & 2

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imagination in extending the use of these materials.

The section on semantics begins with sets of common items fromeveryday experiences of children such as animals, clothes, vehicles, fruits andflowers. These are intended to help build a basic vocabulary for the youngchild. when the child learns to use these words he learns not only to namethem but also to acquire knowledge about the objects that they represent.When the child has varied experiences with these words:he forms links betweenthem and other words, thus building up both linguistic skills and cognitiveknowledge. Semantic training therefore is not merely training in vocabularybut also sensitisation to the numerous relationships between words. Thereare several aspects to semantic training such as lexical discrimination, vocabularybuilding, categorisation and seleciion. In addition there are complex relationshipsbetween words such as antonymy, paradigmatic and syniagmatic retations,semantic similarity and contiguity and sernantic anomaly" Several of theseimportant aspects of word meaning and thej, i s,ldieurress, wiricir contribuls ir>the richness of the concemed languages, are introduced in the semantic section.The language training activities range from matching, discrimination,identification, association, simple questions, multiple choice tasks, to fill in andsentence completion tasks.

Subsections for syntactic strucfures include plurals, affirmatives, negatives,intenogativest causatives, conditionals, conjunctives, quotatives and participialconshuctions. Facilitation of syntactic structures can begin with ihe introductionof common verbs such as 'eat', 'drink' 'sleep' 'walk and 'run'. with the useof the language teaching aids the child can be introduced to the marking of,these verbs and others for plurality, tense, person, number and gender. Themore complex structures of causatives, conditionals, quotatives and participialare to be introduced when ihe child has a sufficient degree of mastery overbasic syntax. Efforts should be made to ensure that all language training shouldbe as contexfual and conversational as possible.

The choice of items for training should begin at the functional level ofthe child and moved up in a hierarchical manner. Both semantic and syntacticskills should be taught in pbrallel and'be integrated and generalised across

_everyday speaking situations.

Finally, it must be remembnr"d ihut these items are by no meanscomprehensive and it is recommended that the user go beyond the manualto both expand examples and other structures not covered by us and relateit to the environment of the child so as to stimulate his overall languagedevelopment- The kit is mainly a guide with clear examples. These materlals:,)iir; *iti-i silirui,.i i* :ril:;rii:;.i it-' iriin: a:, i';i;rr::i 1;;r:i.; :;rir;i; i:)ii ;:iliii,i)iii:,::r iriid

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Results

The end resuit of the project is an early language training kit consisting

of manual and 664 pictures in 10 Indian languages that can be used across

India. These materials can be used not.only by Slips but also ail oihers

concemed wiih children having difficulties in learning languag.g such as parents,

educators, special educators, psychologists and linguists' Since the completion

of the project efforts were made by us to get ihe material published so as

to make them easily available for potential users. Regrettably most commercial

publishers are uninterested in publications such as these since they do not

visualize a market for thern. We were hor,vever able to convince Book for

Change, Bangalore with support from Action Aid to publish the English

manual with the kit in the year 2000. Since its first publication the material

has gradually gained an audience with excellent feedback and is now in its

third print. Subsequently the Kannada Version of the manual has also been

published and is now available. We are'awaiting publiiation of the maluals

in the remaining eight Indian languages that is Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam,

Marathi, Otiyu, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu-

Acknowledgements

This project was carried out under a grant (No NTW/8 '9/622/90) from

INICEF, INDIA to Prathibha Karanth, R.Manjula, Y.V-Geetha and K's.Prema

and was carried out at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore,

India- We have also received the support of over 50 of our colleagues and

students in completing this project, all of who have been individually

acknowledged in the manual of the early language training kit.

References

crystal, D., Fletcher, P., & Garman, M. 1989. Language Assessment,

Remediaiion and Screening Procedure {IARSP ), in'The Grammatical Analysis

of Language Disability'. London: Whurr'

Karanth, p Lg84'.'lnter- Relationship of Linguistic deviance and Social

deviance'. young Scientists Fellowship Award, Indian Council of Social Science

Research Report. New Delhi.

Semel, E. & Wiig,(CLIP). Communication

E.H. 2000. Clinical Language Intervention Program

Skill Builders. Harcourt Health Sciences Co: Texas'

l 4 Journal of Rehabilitation council of India, Volume 3, No. 1 & 2 Jan- - Dec.-20O7