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Welcome to the Language as a Missing Link course. This course is designed to introduce you to the importance of language and its link to quality-of-life factors.
The course is self-paced and may take 1-3 hours to completely review. We hope that you will spend time and come back often to review to continue to gain knowledge and understanding of language as a wellbeing indicator. At the end of the course, participants will be able to:
1. Define language
2. Identify elements of language
3. Describe importance of language
4. Describe Why? What? How? of language
5. Apply course content to practice and policy
Course Preparation
Cognitive psychologists suggests that people participating in a new course of study should first learn the context of thinking differently, and, thus, should be exposed to course preparation by thinking about the system in which new ideas rests that impact individuals in ways that build new skills.
Therefore, this section is designed to prepare you for learning new ideas and practices, as well leveraging your knowledge, experience, and insight.
Thinking Differently
Have you ever been frustrated with a system? You probably have at some point, and you have probably also experienced how difficult it is to navigate a system and how hard it is to change a system. That is why this quote resonates with many people:
“You never change the things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new system that makes the existing system obsolete.” -Buckminster Fuller
But how do we do that?
Often we work in or work with systems that focus on the presenting problem, the problem in front of us. Why? Because we are extremely busy with a long list of things to do, and we want to get the presenting problem out of the way so we can move to the next issue.
“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”
Neils Bohr (Nobel Prize)
So, let’s look at the difference between a presenting problem and a basic problem and our perception of each and the likely outcomes.
Being remedy focused means we are interested in the problem, of course, but we are responding to the presenting problem instead of the looking for the basic problem because we are task-driven instead of purpose-driven. We want to get the problem out of our way so we can move on with our day without considering what the basic problem may be. This is not uncommon because most of us are trained to be task-driven. We often equate task-orientation to efficiency.
But what often happens when we remain in the remedy train of thought where we address just the presenting problem instead of looking for the basic problem?
Moving to Solutions
We are not often encouraged to think differently. Moving from remedy thinking to solutions thinking is thinking differently, and it requires a different perspective on what impacts our children.
In the context of thinking differently, we need to include a process to notice a different perspective of language by considering the determinants of behavior.
Identifying determinants and patterns of behavior is critical to understanding the importance of language. How we can do that is by using a model outside of our typical sphere of influence – let’s consider epidemiology.
There are two basic components of epidemiology:
1. Diseases do not occur by chance - there are always determinants (causes) for the disease to occur and
2. Diseases do not occur randomly.
The epidemiological model can be applied to behavior to begin to understand the importance of language:
1. Behaviors do not occur by chance - there are always determinants for the behavior to occur and
2. Behaviors do not occur randomly.
It can be useful to apply these two epidemiological concepts to human behavior and language, because behavior always has a determinant and behavior is not as random as it may seem, which means patterns of emerge, including patterns that can be linked to language.
Epidemiology is the science of studying population-based effects on people across many determinants.
Epidemiology can help us identify and understand patterns.
The key to applying the two basic concepts of epidemiology is the value of determining causes and responses that may unveil patterns and clues to understanding behavior that otherwise might be dismissed as random and unpredictable, which leads to characterizing behavior and labeling children or what research refers to as attribution error.
Attribution Error
Attribution error is a significant blind spot for most if not all of us. Attribution error leads us in ways that are not aligned with the basic problem, which often is related to language. Attribution error in simple terms is this: our response to someone’s behavior is related more to why we think they did what they did than to what they did. For example, a student is characterized as disrespectful and inattentive which leads a teacher internally labeling him “a student with an attitude.” Consequently, the teacher backs away and thinks, “I don’t have time for his attitude.” But as you will learn later in this course, the student may have issues with receptive language, or the ability to understand and follow verbal instructions. The prevalence of teachers and others missing language issues with children of all ages is significantly high. Consequently, attribution error is not uncommon but with potentially devastating results.
Think of a time when you or someone you know misread or misunderstood another person’s behavior – what was the outcome?
When there is a mismatch between a child’s language and the demands of a given environment, a child may appear inattentive, “uncooperative,” and/or may use behavior to communicate. This often leads to attribution errors and reactive versus proactive approaches.
Are you task driven or purpose driven? Depending on your answer, how could being task driven or purpose driven effect your work?
As illustrated by the arrows, the problems come back to us repeatedly if we only focus on remedies. This is true in our professional lives and in our personal lives. But it is important to note that when the same problems come back to us they may disguised as something else, which only deepens the remedy trap because the basic problem becomes even more deeply hidden and our reliance on tasks then becomes part of the problem.
You may be wondering, if the remedy system is so inefficient, why do we stay in the remedy system? Good question! It’s primarily because we think it gets the problem out of our way, so we think it works. It gets us through the day. But guess what will keep coming back to us – right – the same problem.
In this course, we are going to focus on a basic problem, which is language as a missing link.
During the course, we will talk about a basic problem while focusing on what works with children, which is the importance of language and how we miss opportunities to better engage children in learning and socialization.
It’s important to point out that we are NOT talking about a deficit model; instead, we’re talking about language as a well-being indicator. The difference is important because a well-being indicator in this course means we can do much more than we are doing now because we are missing opportunities to create conditions for learning for children in multiple settings.
In fact, we need to learn how to replace the notion of deficits with engagement at all levels . Engagement is a measure of health, both for us and for the children and others we work with. Engagement is the ability and capacity and opportunity to engage with others, to engage in learning, to engage in problem solving, to engage with our surroundings.
Children use language to ask for things that are comforting, people that can help, and actions that are soothing and they use inner language to talk themselves through challenging situations.
Without language, a child’s coping skills are often reduced to behavior — running, lashing out at others, self-harm.
Before we transition to the Introduction Module,
remember that you are now thinking differently.
THINK DIFFERENTLY
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