Verbal reasoning is one of those areas in the scope of speech therapy that can feel undefined, leaving SLPs unsure of their role in evaluating and treating its deficits. Verbal reasoning encompasses many skills (such as predicting, figurative language, and problem-solving) which are goals that SLPs often target with their students.
Because deficits in verbal reasoning can lead to difficulty across many environments, SLPs target it in speech therapy with students of many ages. Progress in the subskills of verbal reasoning can improve a student's confidence and contribute to increased success in school, at home, and in the community.
What is verbal reasoning?
Verbal reasoning is using language to understand, interpret, and analyze a situation that's written or presented verbally. To provide contrast, non-verbal reasoning involves using logic to interpret pictures, shapes, and diagrams.
Verbal reasoning goes beyond basic understanding, recall, and use of words or language. Verbal reasoning skills allow people to think critically and draw their own thoughts and conclusions about something they hear or read. We use verbal reasoning in multiple environments throughout each day.
Why is verbal reasoning important?
Verbal reasoning incorporates higher-order language skills that are necessary for tasks throughout everyday life. Being able to draw on prior knowledge, think critically about a situation, and express ideas contributes to success across many environments.
In school, students must explain their reasoning, synthesize information, and make connections between ideas.
In daily life, we are constantly thinking logically to understand situations, solve problems, and make decisions.
In social contexts, we recognize and respond to others' humor, figurative language expressions, and sarcasm. We also provide explanations and make inferences and predictions.
How do difficulties in verbal reasoning affect a student?
Because verbal reasoning skills are used in many situations, deficits in this area can create challenges across all environments. More specifically, students may struggle with using language to understand and navigate situations (or text).
How is verbal reasoning assessed?
Like most speech therapy skills, there are many ways for SLPs to evaluate a student's verbal reasoning abilities. Many standardized language assessments include verbal reasoning subtests (such as the CASL and TOLD).
SLPs may use other evaluation measures, such as checklists and questionnaires, to identify strengths and weaknesses in verbal reasoning. Work samples, language samples, and observations can also be used to pinpoint difficulties with verbal reasoning.
How can SLPs can target verbal reasoning in speech therapy?
Once a deficit is identified, an SLP can help a student improve any number of verbal reasoning skills. Specific areas of difficulty can be explicitly taught and practiced, including:
Identifying Absurdities
When identifying absurdities, a student must detect the part of a sentence that is illogical or impossible. Furthermore, students may explain why it doesn't make sense given the overall context of the sentence.
In this speech therapy activity (get it here on Boom), students not only identify the absurdity and why it doesn't make sense but also determine a word that would logically complete the sentence.
Completing Analogies
Completing an analogy requires a student to not only think about relationships between words, objects, or ideas but also come up with one (or more) logical ways to complete a comparison.
In this Boom Card deck (get it here on Boom) the student selects the appropriate phrase to complete the analogy. There are multiple levels so students can work up from pictures to more abstract words and concepts.
Making Associations
When making an association, a student must identify features of multiple objects in order to draw a conclusion about their likeness. The student determines which features are relevant in creating a connection between two or more items.
Of course, there are varying levels of complexity when working on associations. This Boom Card deck (available here on Boom) has a lesson on associations along with two levels of practice (including 4 and 8 objects per card).
Expressing Similarities and Differences
Another verbal reasoning skill is explaining how items or concepts are alike or different. Comparing and contrasting requires a student to make connections beyond giving basic descriptions of items.
Making Inferences and Predictions
Inference and prediction activities encourage students to consider relevant information and use logical reasoning to identify and justify likely conclusions that aren't explicitly stated.
In this social language activity (get only the Boom version here), students use the information given (a photo and written description) to draw various conclusions about the situation. As in many verbal reasoning tasks, often there is not only one right answer.
Sequencing and Retelling Events
Formulating narratives is a skill that requires using of higher-level language to recall events, place them in a proper sequence, and express them clearly, concisely, and in a logical manner.
Because this verbal reasoning skill is used across many academic and social environments, it is often targeted in speech therapy.
Solving Problems
When solving problems, students determine the problem and evaluate logical solutions. As with other verbal reasoning skills, the problem may not be clearly stated. Inferring, predicting, and perspective-taking are components of solving problems and can be addressed concurrently.
Social situations aren't the only instance when problem-solving is needed. Interoceptive awareness (referring to one's ability to understand their own body's signals) also requires identifying logical solutions to problems. This interoception activity provides an example.
Taking the Perspective of Others
As previously mentioned, perspective-taking is another pragmatic subskill that is included in the umbrella of verbal reasoning skills. Students consider their background knowledge and apply it to a situation to understand the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others.
In this identifying emotions activity (get only the Boom version here), students use a picture and written situation to practice several verbal reasoning skills at once. The student express how someone might be feeling, why they might be feeling that way, something they could say to them, and a time they felt similarly.
Understanding Figurative Language
Students use verbal reasoning to recognize figurative language expressions (such as idioms, sarcasm, or a puns) and figure out their nonliteral meaning.
In this figurative language activity (get the Boom version here), students use the paragraph's context to determine the meaning of the idiom used. As an extension of the activity, they can also think of another example of how the idiom could be used.
Verbal reasoning is an umbrella of skills that includes so many components of day-to-day communication and functioning. Because of this, deficits in this area can create issues for students. SLPs, however, can treat verbal reasoning skills from many different angles, so hopefully this post gives you some direction and ideas.
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