Academic Language Therapy Flashcards

A CALT is working with a 10-year-old student who consistently omits the /k/ in consonant clusters (e.g., reads 'ask' as 'as'). Phonological analysis reveals this pattern is exclusive to coda clusters in the final position. Which intervention sequence most precisely targets this phonological deficit?

Answer: Begin with auditory discrimination of final clusters in minimal pairs, then progress to blending, segmenting, and finally encoding in isolation before connected text

Phonological remediation for coda cluster deletion should begin at the auditory/perceptual level (discrimination), ensuring the student can hear the distinction before being asked to produce or encode it. Minimal pair contrast work (e.g., 'ask' vs. 'as') builds the phonemic representation. This follows the MSL sequence: phonemic awareness → blending/segmenting → encoding in isolation → connected text. Option B skips auditory discrimination entirely. Option C moves directly to encoding without establishing phonemic awareness. Option D targets onset deletion, which addresses a different phonological position than the identified deficit.

According to ASHA and IDA definitions, which scenario best exemplifies the distinction between a 'language-based learning disability' and 'dyslexia' as separate but often co-occurring conditions?

Answer: A student who struggles with phonological decoding and spelling but demonstrates age-appropriate oral vocabulary, listening comprehension, and syntactic understanding

Dyslexia, as defined by the IDA, is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and poor spelling, rooted in phonological processing deficits — with oral language comprehension often preserved. A student showing phonological decoding deficits but intact oral vocabulary and listening comprehension represents a profile consistent with dyslexia specifically, not a broader language-based learning disability (LBLD). Option B describes a student whose difficulties extend to oral narrative and morphological awareness in spoken language, suggesting a broader LBLD profile beyond dyslexia. Options C and D describe common myths (letter reversals as diagnostic, late identification) not specific to the conceptual distinction.

A CALT is assessing morphological knowledge in a 13-year-old with persistent reading difficulties. The student can correctly read and define 'transport' and 'portable' but cannot decode or define 'deportation.' This error pattern is MOST consistent with a deficit in which specific morphological skill?

Answer: Morpheme combinability and derivational transparency — the ability to recognize and parse multimorphemic words through their constituent base and affixes

The student's knowledge of 'transport' and 'portable' demonstrates awareness of the Latin root 'port' (to carry) in isolation, but the failure to parse 'deportation' as de + port + ation indicates a deficit in morpheme combinability — the active skill of identifying and combining multiple morphemes (prefix + root + suffix) within a complex, multimorphemic word. This is a derivational transparency skill: applying known morphemes flexibly to unfamiliar complex forms. Option B is incorrect because the student does recognize 'port' in known words. Option C is a phonological explanation but the pattern is morphological, not phonological. Option D (semantic transparency) applies when meaning is opaque, but here the issue is decoding/parsing, not semantic interpretation.

When applying the Orton-Gillingham approach's principle of 'diagnostic teaching,' a CALT notices mid-lesson that a student who was introduced to the /oi/ diphthong spelling pattern is correctly reading 'coil' and 'foil' but consistently misspells them as 'ciol' and 'fiol.' This error type MOST directly suggests the student needs reinforcement of which concept?

Answer: Vowel team syllable type identification, specifically that two adjacent vowels form a single vowel sound and must be kept together in syllabication

Writing 'ciol' instead of 'coil' is a metathesis error where the student transposes the letters within the vowel team — placing 'i' before 'o.' This most directly indicates the student has not fully internalized that 'oi' functions as a single, inseparable unit within a vowel team syllable. The remediation target is reinforcing that the vowel team grapheme 'oi' is a two-letter unit representing one sound and must be treated as a chunk. Option A describes a relevant positional rule (oi vs. oy) but the error here is not a substitution of 'oy' for 'oi' — it's a within-team transposition. Option C is a conceptual distinction but not the precise remediation target. Option D is incorrect because the student reads the words correctly, ruling out an auditory discrimination deficit.

A CALT is conducting a comprehensive diagnostic assessment and administers both the CTOPP-2 and the GORT-5. The student scores at the 16th percentile on Phonological Memory and Rapid Symbolic Naming on the CTOPP-2, but at the 63rd percentile on Oral Reading Fluency on the GORT-5. Which interpretation of these findings is MOST defensible?

Answer: The discrepancy suggests compensatory mechanisms may be masking the underlying phonological processing weaknesses in oral reading fluency tasks, warranting further assessment of decoding accuracy under isolated and timed conditions

It is well-documented that students with phonological processing weaknesses can develop compensatory reading strategies — particularly through semantic context use, sight word memorization, and strong vocabulary — that allow passage-level oral reading fluency to appear average even when underlying phonological skills are impaired. This 'compensated dyslexic' profile is clinically significant and does not indicate test invalidity. The appropriate response is to probe further: assess isolated nonword decoding, untimed single-word reading, and spelling, which are less amenable to compensation. Option B incorrectly concludes invalidity. Option C is a clinical error — subclinical framing ignores that phonological memory deficits are predictive of future difficulties as reading demands increase. Option D is methodologically unsound; ecological validity does not determine relative weighting in a multi-measure battery.

In the context of structured literacy intervention for a student with a confirmed reading disability, a CALT is selecting between two intervention approaches for a student entering 7th grade with a 4th-grade decoding level. The student has above-average verbal reasoning and oral vocabulary. Which consideration is MOST critical when determining lesson pacing and complexity sequencing for this student?

Answer: Cognitive load distribution: the CALT should introduce phoneme-grapheme correspondences at a pace that allows the student's strong verbal reasoning to support metalinguistic analysis, without exceeding working memory capacity during encoding and decoding tasks

For an older student with a significant decoding gap but strong verbal reasoning and vocabulary, the critical instructional challenge is leveraging cognitive strengths (metalinguistic analysis, verbal reasoning) while carefully managing working memory load during decoding and encoding. Strong verbal reasoning can support the student in analyzing morpheme patterns and orthographic rules at a more sophisticated level than a younger child — but this advantage disappears if too many new phoneme-grapheme correspondences are introduced simultaneously, overwhelming working memory. Pacing must be systematic (following the scope and sequence) but can move through already-acquired patterns more quickly. Option B confuses comprehension strategy instruction with foundational decoding remediation — a known pitfall for older students. Option C describes using frustration-level text, which is contraindicated in systematic decoding instruction. Option D prioritizes social considerations over instructional integrity, which is not a primary clinical decision factor.