Understanding Abstract Language

Summary: There has been an incident on the playground and the teacher asks the child ‘Why are you crying?’ the child continues to cry and does not explain what happened. This may sound familiar. When working with children we often find they face challenges when trying to communicate how they are feeling, discussing events or describing something they have seen or experienced. We may feel they are avoiding questions or don’t want to answer, but what if they have not developed the language skills required to answer? What if they only need the question re-phrased ‘what made you feel sad?’ Part of our role as speech and language therapists is to support children in developing their understanding of abstract language, verbal reasoning and problem-solving skills, we call these blank levels.

What are blank levels?

Blank levels are a framework based on the Language of Learning model by Blank, Rose and Berlin (1978). It facilitates the classification of abstract questions into four levels; name, describe, re-telling and justifying. These four levels follow a developmental sequence and can be used to assess and support children in understanding abstract language. By increasing our understanding of the levels of abstract language we can empower children to develop these skills and develop confidence in their communications.

What are the four levels?

Level 1: Naming:

Questions which require children to match language to what they see, for example ‘point to the car’ or ‘what is this?’

Level 2: Describing:

Focuses more on describing attributes of objects and what they see, for example ‘show me something you can eat’ or ‘tell me another animal’.

Level 3: Re-telling:

Involves a child being asked to re-tell or provide a narrative to something they have seen or heard. This might include describing a place or how someone feels. For example, ‘what is the girl feeling in this picture?’

Level 4: Justifying:

Requires children to solve and justify verbal problems through drawing upon their own experiences and language skills. For example, ‘what would you wear on a hot day?’ or ‘why can’t we ride a lion?’

Identifying children who may require support

How do we recognise children who might need support? As speech and language therapists we will assess children using both informal and formal assessments to ascertain a child’s understanding of blank level understanding, we will then support children to develop these skills starting at the level below their ability to build confidence and scaffold. Without formal assessment there are signs which could indicate challenges with abstract language:

• They may ask for multiple repetitions of information.
• Look to others to follow instructions and see what they are doing before starting an activity.
• They start an activity but be unable to complete the whole instruction.
• They may appear quiet or avoid tasks, sometimes using behaviours which draw attention away from what they need to do.
• Provide an answer to a question which is off topic or does not provide a response which matches the question.

What are the benefits?

There are many benefits to blank level questioning, it provides a simple framework to support children to develop key language skills, taking children from a concrete understanding of language to abstract across four levels. It can be adapted to support children individually, or as whole class learning and can be used across the curriculum. Resources are simple and effective, from using everyday activities e.g., when out for a walk ‘what do you see?’, ‘can you find a white flower? ‘To pictures on media platforms and photographs e.g., ‘why is the girl running?’ Most importantly it empowers children to be able to express themselves with confidence.