Cycles Approach for Language – Treating Multiple Areas of Language Simultaneously
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What is the cycles approach for language therapy and why was it created?
Hello there and welcome to today's episode of the Speech and Language Kids podcast. Today we are going to be talking about what to do if you are working with a child who is struggling in more than one area of language. So if you've been watching our previous episodes for the last several weeks, we've been talking about how to follow the framework, the SLK framework, to guide you toward which skill to work on. But that gets more complicated when the child is struggling in multiple areas. So we are going to go through today and we are going to talk about this idea of a cycles approach to language therapy. So if you are new to me, welcome. I'm Carrie Clark, speech language pathologist, and I run the Speech and Language Kids website along with the Speech and Language Kids Hub, which is our membership community that holds our SLK.
Framework and all of our materials, as well as our discussion board, which is where I am live right now. Welcome, Tiffany. All right, those of you who are with me live, you can chat in and ask questions as we go along. And if you would like to listen to a live recording of our podcast in the future, you can head on over to hub.speechandlanguage kids.com. All right, okay, so I wanna tell you where this idea of this cycles approach for language came from for me personally. And this was two little friends that I had at a rural school district that I was going to um where it was about an hour away. And so me and one other therapist would go out there once a week and we would see all the kids in the entire school district in one day.
And then we'd come back because it was a small school district. So there weren't a lot of kids that needed those special services. But we had two in particular that I was working with that got my gears working in this this idea of Cycles approach for language. So if you're familiar with uh the cycles approach for phonology, that's where a child is struggling with a lot of different areas of phonology, meaning that they have a lot of phonological processes or sound errors. And so what the cycles approach does is it takes Each phonological process that they need to work on and works on it for a set amount of time before you cycle to the next one. And this is a very well-established method of treating speech sound disorders, in particular, phonological disorders.
And we actually have a whole bunch of resources inside the hub and on the Speech and Language Kids site on that cycles approach for phonology. But there's not as much talked about this approach when it comes to language therapy or even other speech sound disorders like articulation. And so this was what I wanted to start looking into. And here's why. So I had two friends at this rural school district. Let's call the first one Lane. So Lane was in third grade, and honestly, Lane's language skills were not that bad. She was on my caseload. I she was already on the caseload when I came to the district. Um, and she had a couple of language goals for specific skills, but she was doing great with those. And so it came time to do her IEP and I struggled to figure out what to write goals for because yes, she still needed some help, but there wasn't one thing where I could say, oh man, her vocab skills.
That if we could, you know, that's the thing that she's struggling with. Or, oh, it's just syntax, right? It was, I mean, she had a couple of pronoun problems, but her other syntax was good.
How did real‑world cases with Lane and Parker illustrate the need for a cycles method?
She had a couple of vocab problems, but most of her vocab was good. And so it was, she had a lot of different areas where she was slightly delayed, uh, but not enough that I could say, ah, yes, this is what we need to write the goal for. Okay. And so that one started me thinking of, okay. Is there a way that instead of saying I'm gonna hit this one language skill for six weeks very just directly and very in-depth, and we're gonna hit it until she's got it? Could I instead make more progress with her by giving her a little reminder of this skill, a little reminder of this skill, a boost of that skill, explicitly teach that one, and cycle through like we do with the phonology?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the cycles approach for language therapy and why was it created?
0:00–3:29
2
How did real‑world cases with Lane and Parker illustrate the need for a cycles method?
3:29–6:35
3
What research supports cycling language targets versus block or combined therapy?
6:35–9:26
4
How can clinicians design a language cycle – choosing goals, timing, and order?
9:26–11:47
5
What are effective ways to write goals and collect data within a cycles framework?
11:47–14:29
6
How does a typical therapy session look when using the cycles approach?
14:29–16:47
7
What is the Core Language Program and how does it implement a 16‑week cycle?
16:47–19:35
8
Where can listeners find resources and tools to start using cycles in their practice?
19:35–22:04