Events with Buttonloop

Language Development the Natural Way!  

Does your child uses a ‘typical’ language development style — or a ‘gestalt’ one? Learn how to be their best supporter!  

 We all know that using natural language is the key to language development for all children. We also know that most children develop language the way we expect, the word-plus-word way, the ‘analytic’ way. And we know how to support them.    

But what about the kids who start with songs — or whole ‘scripts’ —  or blurs of sound that are completely unintelligible? This is the ‘gestalt’ way. It’s natural too — and it leads to the same place. We just need to know how to support it.   

We all know something about supporting the ‘usual’ way: the word + word way. We point to things in the environment, and carefully name them so an ‘analytic’ toddler develops phrases from combos of single words. So, for most kids, our supports work.  

But what if they don’t. What if our little one uses those single words but never puts together word + word phrases? Or never used those single words at all? Or didn’t seem to care when we were pointing things out, or that we were talking at all.  

What about the kids who do something completely different? Something we didn’t understand at all. What if we had no idea what they were trying to say — and it just sounded like gibberish? And what if they sang but didn’t talk? Or sang the same thing over and over — or tried to sing but couldn’t get the sounds out. Or just played the same YouTube clip over and over, and seemed to tune us out completely?  

But what if one day, you started to recognize one of their lines, or songs — or realized the YouTube clip matched something in real life? You had a glimmer of hope, and shared this news with a friend. But you got this response: “Oh, that’s just ‘echolalia.’ They’re just echoing something they heard somewhere. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just random.”  

But what if you’re thinking something different — that it didn’t seem so random at all. “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring…” — and it IS raining! Your ‘Aha’ moment is one we’ve probably all felt at least once. You smile just a little bit to yourself, but then question your intuition. To you, we say, ‘welcome!’  

Yes, welcome! Because this webinar series is just for you! The family member who ‘gets it,’ or almost believes it could be true, or has an inkling that there’s something to ‘get.’ And for all the other people who haven’t had their ‘Aha!” moment yet. Welcome!  

I know how it feels to ‘get it’ the first time. It happened to me 30 years ago, and then again, and again, and again, each time a child who uses a gestalt language development process takes a baby step, or a giant leap… It never gets old!  

Please join me in a free, four part webinar series created just for you (and all the others in your family). Gestalt language development is natural, common, and productive. It is what kids who start language development with echolalia do naturally. They see how language chunks can be broken down, and how single words can be isolated naturally — and used in the same ways analytic kids use them! It takes a little longer to get there, but it works! Plus, it’s painless and natural! And we are there to help. We used to think we could stop echolalia and ‘teach’ echolalic kids to put words together, but it never worked. And when it didn’t work, we thought these kids were incapable of grammar development, and that we should teach them some rote language instead — so they could at least say something  — to make requests, for instance. But they never did develop grammar.  

Thankfully, times have changed, and we know better now. But how does knowing that help us, the parents, family members, and the professionals who care about these kids?   

Join us for our webinar series and you will learn all you need to know to support language development at home: how to figure out if your child is using a gestalt process, and if so, what to do to support it. And just like gestalt language development is natural, the supports are all natural too. They are what we learned from our clinical research with kids of all ages. This webinar series will describe gestalt language development all the way from processing language gestalts to acquiring a full grammar system. You will learn how gestalt language development can be recognized and supported, watch case examples of clients who have progressed through multiple stages of gestalt language development, and learn to apply this understanding to your own child.  

Can’t wait to see you there!    ~ Marge                                              

Marge Blanc, M.A., CCC-SLP   

www.communicationdevelopmentcenter.com