Word of Mouth 25:1 September/October 2013

around smoke. What would be a good way to solve this
problem? Why is that a good solution?”
Social interaction. This subtest measures a student’s
ability to understand social interactions with peers. In a
series of scenarios, the student is asked to assume the
perspective of a peer and provide an appropriate
response that is positive and supportive of that fictional
peer, for example, Your football team just won the
semifinals. You want to say something to the team that
lost. What do you say?
Interpreting ironic statements. The examinee listens
to situations presented by a narrator. The student is
asked to tell the meaning of these comments based on
context clues and to explain the meaning of irony and
sarcasm such as I see you have your hands full; I’m
green with envy.
Comments
Few studies and assessments on emotional
understanding differentiate nonsocial and social
emotions. In reviewing a large number of studies on
emotional understanding in persons with high functioning
autism or Aspergers (HFASD), Bauminger-Zviely (2013)
reported that these persons often correctly identify
primary emotional expressions (happy, sad, mad,
disgusted, afraid) and correctly associated these emotions
to nonsocial causes (e.g., receiving a gift, losing a pet,
being chased by a big dog). They have considerably
more difficulty in associating these emotions with social
causes related to interactions with other persons. Persons
with HFASD exhibited significantly more difficulty than
typically developing persons in understanding more
complex emotions, but they were better on nonsocial
complex emotions (e.g., surprise, disappointment,
curiosity) than on complex social emotions (e.g.,
embarrassment, jealousy, pride).
None of the currently available assessments for
pragmatic or social/emotional language skills
differentiate between nonsocial and social emotional
understanding. Furthermore, the items on most of these
assessments tap knowledge of primary nonsocial
emotions rather than complex social emotions. The two
assessments reviewed in this article focus almost
exclusively on complex social emotions. Students
generally do not receive credit if their responses refer
only to primary emotions. They report more complex
emotions (e.g., bored, frustrated, suspicious, impatient,
disbelief) and explain the bases for these emotions.
Hence, I am not surprised that these Social Language
Development tests identify students with pragmatic/
social skills deficits that are not identified by other
assessment tools.
References
Bauminger-Zviely, N. (2013). Social and academic abilities in
children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.
New York, NY: Guilford.
Bowers, L., Husingh, R., & LaGiudice, C. (2008). Social
Language Development Test Elementary. East Moline, IL:
Linguisystems.
Bowers, L., Husingh, R., & LaGiudice, C. (2009). Social
language training elementary. East Moline, IL:
Linguisystems.
Bowers, L., Husingh, R., & LaGiudice, C. (2010a). Social
Language Development Test Adolescent. East Moline, IL:
Linguisystems.
Bowers, L., Husingh, R., & LaGiudice, C. (2010b). Social
language training adolescent. East Moline, IL: Linguisystems.
Semel, E., Wiig, E., & Secord, W. (2005). Clinical evaluation of
language fundamentals–Fourth edition. San Antonio, TX:
The Psychology Corporation.

Word of Mouth welcomes creative therapy activities for Idea Swap. E-mail your ideas to
mocha@unm.edu or mail to Carol Westby, 1808 Princeton NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106.

Vocab-o-Grams
Based on information in Blachowicz, C., Fisher, P., Ogle, D., & Taffe, S. W. (2013).
Teaching academic vocabulary K-8: Effective practices across the curriculum.
New York, NY: Guilford.
By Carol Westby

Blachowicz and colleagues suggest vocab-o-grams as a knowledge and make predictions about narrative texts.
word and story structure activity that combines thinking The format is a semantic chart with the traditional story
about words and categorizing them to build background elements on one side, such as setting, characters,

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 Word of Mouth 25:1 September/October 2013

Pre-Reading Vocab-o-Gram for Holes

Use vocabulary to make predictions about…. (words may be used more than once)

twitch, generations, condemned, rummage, gruff, tedious, lurch, nonetheless, forlorn, gratefully, precipice,
barren, despicable, revving, preposterous, desperate, writhe, desolate, venom, horizon, quivering drought
eventually, glisten, excavate, strenuous, snicker, shimmering, contritely, perseverance, inexplicable, raspy,
predatory, stranded, concoctions, precarious, dawdle
Setting What might the setting be like?
Barren, precipice, desolate, horizon, drought Not much there; maybe a desert
Characters What do you think about the characters?
despicable, raspy, I think they won’t be very nice; they might be mean and
preposterous, desperate, gruff, forlorn do bad things
Problem or goal What might it be?
predatory, condemned, stranded, nonetheless Characters are lost in a dangerous place. They have to
concoctions, precarious, venom stay safe and get out.
Actions What might happen?
quivering, twitch, dawdle, writhe snicker, rum- Something scary; They have to work hard to get out.
mage, revving, excavate
Resolution How might it end?
eventually, glisten, perseverance, strenuous, grate- Eventually, their hard work pays off. They find jewels
fully, strenuous, shimmering, generations and get out.
What questions do you have?
Are some characters good? How did the characters get lost? What did they do to get out?
Mystery words: Which words are you not sure about where to place?
tedious, lurch, contritely, inexplicable

FIGURE 1. Vocab-o-gram for Holes.

Source. Sachar (1998).

conflict, plot, and resolution, as well as two extra slots
for questions and mystery words. The speech-language
pathologists or teacher selects a fairly large bank of
intriguing and loaded words from the story. This activity
gives students the opportunity to preview familiar and
unfamiliar words before reading, as well as to predict
how these words might be important in the story while
categorizing them under particular story elements.
The following sequence is suggested when
implementing the vocab-o-gram activity:
1. Select key words from a text that represents story
structure or story grammar. The number of words
you select will depend on the skills of your group
and their experience with vocab-o-grams. You
might begin with just two to three words that fairly
obviously fit the story grammar categories (e.g.,
adjectives that describe settings or characters,
verbs for the actions category). As students become
familiar with the process and how to see links
between words, you can increase the number of
words they are asked to classify.
2. Write the words on a chart, board, or overhead
transparency.
3. In groups, pairs, or individually, have students
place the words in appropriate categories, using the
clues that link words; words can be placed in more
than one category.
4. Conduct a class discussion that centers on student
selections and their use of words in categories.
5. Have students predict about the story.
6. After reading, review and revise placement of
words on the chart.
Figure 1 shows the categories of story structure and
some selected words from Holes (Sachar, 1998).

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