When developing a lexicon for children with specific expressive language impairment which of the following would be LEAST appropriate?

When developing a lexicon for children with specific expressive language impairment which of the following would be LEAST appropriate?

• A. names of objects the child interacts with directly
• B. labels for objects that move and change
• C. labels for actions and games that the child rarely observes
• D. names of important people in the child's environment

Answer: (C)

When building a vocabulary for a child with specific expressive language impairment, you want words that the child can reliably learn from direct, meaningful exposure in daily life. Concrete, observable referents that you can point to, touch, or show during shared activities provide clearer form-meaning mappings and more opportunities to practice and use the word in real communication. The least appropriate choice is labeling actions and games that the child rarely observes because there won’t be enough occasions to link the word to the action, verify its use, or generalize it to new contexts. Without regular exposure to that action, the mapping is weak, making expressive use slow to develop. In contrast, naming objects the child interacts with directly grounds learning in tangible referents the child can see and manipulate; labels for objects that move and change stay tied to salient, dynamic but observable referents that can be reinforced through play; and naming important people in the child’s environment supports social communication and frequent, meaningful practice with the word in real interactions. All of these provide stronger learning opportunities than words for rarely observed actions.

When building a vocabulary for a child with specific expressive language impairment, you want words that the child can reliably learn from direct, meaningful exposure in daily life. Concrete, observable referents that you can point to, touch, or show during shared activities provide clearer form-meaning mappings and more opportunities to practice and use the word in real communication.

The least appropriate choice is labeling actions and games that the child rarely observes because there won’t be enough occasions to link the word to the action, verify its use, or generalize it to new contexts. Without regular exposure to that action, the mapping is weak, making expressive use slow to develop.

In contrast, naming objects the child interacts with directly grounds learning in tangible referents the child can see and manipulate; labels for objects that move and change stay tied to salient, dynamic but observable referents that can be reinforced through play; and naming important people in the child’s environment supports social communication and frequent, meaningful practice with the word in real interactions. All of these provide stronger learning opportunities than words for rarely observed actions.