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The ear has three main parts:
Outer Ear– The auricle or pinna (the part of the ear on the outside of the head) and the ear canal.
Middle Ear– Located between the outer ear and the inner ear, separated from the ear canal by the eardrum. The middle ear contains three tiny bones (the ossicles). The ossicles sound vibrations from the eardrum to the fluid of the inner ear.
Inner Ear– The innermost part of the ear. It is composed of the hearing organ (the cochlea), the balance mechanism (the semicircular canal), and the auditory nerve. Vibration transmitted into the inner ear by the ossicles in the middle ear causes waves in the inner ear fluid, which stimulates the hair cells and the hearing nerve, causing electric signals to be transmitted to the brain, and interpreted as sound.
Other parts of the ear:
Auditory (or acoustic) nerve– Located in the inner ear, leading to the brain.
Cochlea– The snail-like organ of hearing located in the inner ear.
Eardrum– The tympanic membrane which separates the outer from the middle ear.
Ear Mold
A custom-made plastic or vinyl piece which fits into the outer ear to interface with a hearing aid.
Early (Childhood) Intervention (EI)
Early intervention applies to children prior to school age who are discovered to have or be at risk of developing a handicapping condition or other special need that may affect their development. Early intervention consists of the provision of services for such children and their families for the purpose of lessening the effects of the condition. Early intervention can be remedial or preventive in nature–remediating existing developmental problems or preventing their occurrence.
Early Intervention Services
The system of coordinated services designed to promote a child’s developmental growth and the ability to cope with disabilities.
Early-8, Middle-8 and Late-8
rly-8, Middle-8 and Late-8:
Echoics
Repeating the exact same thing as another person. For example:
| Therapist | Client |
| “Cracker” ? | “Cracker” |
| “Cat” ? | “Cat” |
Echolalia
Tendency for an individual to repeat without modification that which is spoken to him; normally occurs between 18 and 24 months of age.
Delayed– Repetition of an original utterance at some later time.
Immediate– Instant repetition of the original utterance.
Mitigated– Repetition of the original utterance with slight modification.
Unmitigated– Unchanged repetition; exact duplication of the original utterance.
Educational Consultant / Diagnostician
An individual who may be familiar with school curriculum and requirements at various grade levels: may or may not have a background in learning disabilities; may conduct educational evaluations.
Educational Interpreter
A person who is able to perform conventional interpreting, together with special skills for working in the educational setting. See Oral Transliterator
Educational Model
Therapy focuses on intervention to improve the child’s ability to learn and function in the school environment.
Educational Therapist
A professional who uses educational and therapeutic approaches in working with clients of all ages with learning problems and learning disabilities. Educational Therapists perform professional work which requires applying the concepts, principles, and practices of education and rehabilitation therapy.
Electroencephalography (EEG)
Technique for recording brain electrical activity.
Elementary School
A nonprofit institutional day or residential school, including an elementary community school, that provides elementary education, as determined by state law.
ElicitTo draw forth or bring out.
Eligibility Requirements
A standard a child must meet to qualify for early intervention services. Qualifiers include age, disabilities, and developmental delays.
Ellipsis
The omission of some words from a sentence.
Emotional Disturbance (ED)
Disability category under IDEA; includes depression, fears, schizophrenia; adversely affects educational performance.
- An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.
- An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.
- Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
- A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
- A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.
- Emotional disturbance includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance under 3301-51-01 of the Administrative Code, paragraph (B)(10)(d)(v).
Emotional Regulation
Voluntary and involuntary responses by a child to internal and external sensory input. The child adjusts emotions and behavior to the surroundings. Many children with ASD have difficulties with adjustments and exhibit abnormal or inappropriate responses.
Emotionally Disturbed
A disturbance which can be characterized by: an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships; inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems. If frequently affects the ability to learn.
Engagement
Mutual and purposeful social interaction and conversation. Important in optimal recovery is the active initiation of conversation by the person with aphasia.
Epenthesis
The insertion of an additional phoneme in a word or in a group of sound, e.g. tree becomes taree.
Epilepsy and Speech / LanguageThe World Health Organisation defines an epileptic seizure as a transient loss of function of all or part of the brain due to excessive electrical activity. Physical, sensory or other functions can be temporarily lost. Certain types of epilepsy can be linked with learning, behavioural and speech and language difficulties. This is increasingly recognised and the risks are greater if epilepsy occurs before 2 years of age. Parkinson (1994) found that from a small study of children referred for assessment of their epilepsy, 40% had undiagnosed language impairment of varying degrees of severity.
Epilepsy can cause temporary loss of function in one or more parts of the brain. If these parts are involved with understanding, organisation and communication processes, difficulties in using language can result. These difficulties can be severe, causing general delay in language development or a disordered pattern of language abilities. The following epilepsy syndromes have associated language difficulties:
- Landau Kleffner Syndrome
- ESES or Tassinari’s syndrome: now called CSWS (Continuous Spike Waves of Slow Sleep)
- Lennox-Gastaut syndrome
- Temporal Lobe epilepsy
Sometimes the disability can be extremely subtle – such as a high level language impairment or disorder. Children may have pragmatic difficulties and, therefore, will not have a clear understanding of language use. They can appear socially inept and can misread others’ intentions. In these cases the child may exhibit bizarre or socially unacceptable behaviours or the child’s language may appear to be “odd” in an inconsistent way. They may have poor turn taking skills, excessive or restricted topic maintenance, and poor skills in greeting, questioning, seeking the attention of others, describing or commenting.
Some children may have episodes of slurred or dysfluent speech. These episodes can occur suddenly and be unconnected with stress or other obvious ‘trigger’ factors. They can be caused by changes in medication and/or as a result of epileptogenic activity i.e. electrical activity in the brain which does not necessarily manifest itself as an obvious epileptic attack.
Equipment
Machinery, utilities, and built-in equipment, and any necessary enclosures or structures to house the machinery, utilities, or equipment; and All other items necessary for the functioning of a particular facility for the provision of educational services, including items such as instructional equipment and necessary furniture; printed, published and audio-visual instructional materials; telecommunications, sensory, and other technological aids and devices; and books, periodicals, documents and other related materials.
Equivalent Score
An equivalent score indicates the individual’s performance on a test in comparison with other populations who have taken the same test. There are age-equivalent scores and grade-equivalent scores.
Errorless Teaching
A procedure used to minimize learner errors so the client remains successful. When presenting a demand, the therapist follows it with an immediate prompt to get a correct response from the client. The prompts are then faded to teach the client to demonstrate the correct response independently.
Etiology
Underlying factors and causing leading to a disorder.
Evaluation
An assessment of an individual’s abilities (i.e., speech and language, motoric, cognitive, etc.) in order to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and to see whether or not deficits are significant for intervention. It is usually the first thing that takes place to get a child qualified for service. The purpose is most often eligibility for a service(s).
Evaluation Team
The Individualized Education Program (IEP) team and other qualified professionals.
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)
The goal of EBP is the integration of: (a) clinical expertise/expert opinion, (b) external scientific evidence, and (c) client/patient/caregiver perspectives to provide high-quality services reflecting the interests, values, needs, and choices of the individuals we serve. Conceptually, the trilateral principles forming the bases for EBP can be represented through a simple figure:
Evoked Response Audiometry (ERA)
A hearing test which uses an EEG (electroencephalograph) and a computer analysis to directly record the brain’s response to sound. Useful in helping to determine a child’s hearing level when the child is too young to cooperate with the audiologist.
Executive Function
The ability to organize cognitive processes. This includes the ability to plan ahead, prioritize, stop and start activities, shift from one activity to another activity, and to monitor one’s own behavior.
Expansions
This is a strategy that can be used to help children learn language. Expansions are when you take the words your child says about what they see and do and repeat them while adding in missing words/grammar. Another way to look at it, is repeating back the “child-like” sentences back to your child using more “adult” language. By doing this, you are repeating and expanding your child’s language without directly “correcting” him/her.
Expressive Language Skills
This refers to a person’s use of words and sentences to communicate messages to others. Expressive language skills include being able to label objects in the environment, describe actions and events, put words together to form phrases and sentences, to use correct grammar, to answer questions, to retell a story etc.
Expressive Language
What is said or written to communicate an idea or question. Skills required to produce language for communication with other individuals. Speaking, writing, gestures, and sign language are expressive language skills. Communication of one’s ideas, desires, or intentions to others, usually through speech or printed words but may also include gestures, sign language, use of a communication board, and other forms of expression.
Expressive Language Difficulties
One simple classification of language is to split it into its receptive and expressive aspects. Receptive language refers to meaning, understanding language and “decoding” language. Expressive language refers to production, spoken output and coding – “a process of formulating ideas into words and sentences, in accordance with the set of grammatical and semantic rules of language” (Cantwell & Baker, 1987). Expressive language can be delayed or disordered. Many elements of delay and disorder overlap, but they are also very different problems. In the early stages, it may be difficult to determine whether the language is delayed or disordered.
A child with expressive language delay is slow to develop spoken language, but this language follows the normal sequence and pattern of acquisition when it does appear. Expressive language disorder implies that acquisition is not only slow, but different from normal. The pattern of development is uneven and atypical. The features of expressive language isorder vary greatly, depending on the severity of the disorder and the child’s age. Language is made up of many areas, including…
- Morphology, the way word structures change (such as, ‘sleep’, ‘sleeping’, ‘slept’).
- Grammar, rules about combining words in phrases and sentences.
- Semantics, the representation of meaning in language.
- Pragmatics, how language is used.
- Phonology, the sound system of the language.
Expressive language difficulties may affect any or all of these areas. Specialists in communication often consider difficulties in terms of their content, form and use.
Content– Difficulties with content of language relate to its meaning. Children with expressive language difficulties may have a limited vocabulary, wordfinding difficulties, and difficulty expressing abstract concepts or categorisation problems. Difficulties with language content may occur in the case of visually impaired children (Warren, 1981) or those with restricted mobility.
Form– Some children have difficulty developing the surface aspects of language – its form. This leads to disorders of the sound system, word forms and grammar. Such children may have difficulty with word order, structuring sentences or expressing what they know and understand. They will perform better on nonverbal tests than on language tests. They may have difficulties with word endings, plurals, possessives, verb tenses or prepositions. Such problems may arise because of acquired or developmental dysphasia or to impaired hearing.
Use– A child may have an expressive language disorder if he or she uses language inappropriately or out of context. The term “semantic-pragmatic disorder” may be used to describe these children, who may seem to have very good verbal comprehension and age appropriate sentence structure, but may have difficulty receiving or interpreting conversational cues. Such problems are also typical of children with learning difficulties. In that case, the children often lack verbal fluency, may overuse a limited or concrete vocabulary, and frequently fail to appreciate a need for clarification (Wiig & Semel, 1980).
Expressive Language Delay (ELD)
Expressive language delay is a broad diagnosis that simply means that a child is having trouble using language in some way, shape, or form. Since this diagnosis is so broad, each child with this diagnosis looks very different. Some have difficulty putting words together to form sentences. Some have difficulty using the correct vocabulary and words. Others have difficulty sequencing information together into a logical manner. There are all types of different expressive language symptoms and each one is treated quite differently.
Late Talkers – A child who is late to begin talking may be described as having an expressive language delay. For the young child who isn’t speaking yet, he has no expressive language (unless he is using sign language or another alternative means) so therapy is focused on increasing his ability to use language to communicate.
Sequencing – Many children with expressive language delays have trouble organizing their language so that what they say makes logical sense. They may have trouble sequencing past events when telling a story or putting steps to an activity in a logical order. This can make their conversation very difficult to follow.
Using Descriptors – Children with expressive language delay (ELD) can have difficulty using descriptors correctly. Descriptors like adjectives and adverbs can add color to our language and help us make our point more clearly, and in a more interesting manner. Children with ELD may either leave these words out all together or use them incorrectly.
Grammar Skills – Many children with expressive language delay also have trouble with using correct grammar. They may omit grammatical markers or use them incorrectly. These are the smaller words and word parts that string together the larger words to make meaningful sentences. Without these words, the child’s speech may sound telegraphic or choppy. Teaching proper grammar is also a great way to increase sentence length for a child who speaks in very short sentences.
Pragmatics / Social Skills – A child may be described as having an expressive language delay if they have trouble with social skills, also known as pragmatics. These children may have difficulty knowing what language to use to interact appropriately with other children.
Answering and Asking Questions – The ability to answer questions correctly requires quite a bit of language skills. First, the child has to understand what the question being asked means. Then, the child must process that question and formulate an answer. Finally, the child must speak that answer in a logical manner. Children with expressive language delay often have difficulty with this process. They may also have difficulty asking questions with correct word order and in a coherent manner.
Vocabulary – Children with expressive language delay may also struggle to learn new words and expand their vocabularies. These children may need extra help to learn words, remember words, and recall them when they need to use them.
Figurative Language – Children with language delays often have difficulty understanding and using figurative language such as idioms, similes, and metaphors.
Making Inferences – Children with language delays often have difficulty making inferences about what’s going on around them or when they are reading.
Expressive Language Disorder
Unable to form meaningful messages using age appropriate grammar or work finding difficulties.
Extend Ear
An FM auditory trainer without a body unit or cords. It can also function as a personal hearing aid. See FM System.
Extended School Year (ESY) Services
ESY Services are services that are often provided beyond the mandated 180 school days (from September to June). There is a process to go through to see if a student qualifies for ESY services. This item is included on the IEP form and requires a discussion and team-based decision.
Extensions / Expansions Plus
This is a strategy that can be used to help children learn language. These are similar to expansions, but one more step up. In extensions, or otherwise known as expansions plus, you not only are repeating and expanding your child’s language, but you will also be adding or extensions new information. For example, if your child says “Car go!” you could say “Yes the car is going. The car is going fast.
Extinction
A behavioral principle in which the reinforcing consequence for a target behavior is eliminated which results in a decrease in the frequency of the behavior. If the child is trying to escape a demand, the therapist or parent will follow through with the demand. If the child is trying to gain attention, the behavior would be ignored.
Eye Aversion
The speaker averts their eyes while speaking or while avoiding or escaping a block.
Eye Blinks
The amount of time a person blinks their eyes is increased while speaking, or when avoiding or escaping a block.
Eye Contact
“looking him/her in the eye” while talking to the listener; generally a natural, although not a constant, interaction of the speaker’s eyes with those of the listener.
Eye Gaze
Nonverbal form of communication. The act of looking at another individual’s face to see what they are looking at and then signal interest in interacting.
Eye Opening
Opening of the speaker’s eyes to a diameter that is wider than what is typical while speaking or avoiding a block.