4 Signs That Your Child is a Gestalt Language Processor
Did you know there’s more than one way to learn language?
Hey parents! Have you ever wondered how your child makes sense of the world through language? Well, let's dive into the fascinating world of Gestalt Language Processing (GLP) – a concept that plays a crucial role in your little one's language development.
What is Gestalt Language Processing? Imagine your child is like a detective, trying to piece together a puzzle. Gestalt Language Processing is like the special power they use to see the whole picture instead of just individual pieces. In simpler terms, it's the brain's way of organizing information to create a complete and meaningful understanding. Not sure if your child is a gestalt language processor? Here are 4 signs your child might be a GLP.
Long Scripts - These are the most obvious children to recognize as they often repeat long scripts they have heard from videos, books, TV shows, YouTube, etc. It’s a chunk of language that is said in the same way every time,
Single Words - It may be tricker to recognize these children as they are able to label or name many items and my response with single words to questions, however, their single words are stuck. They have difficulty combining these single words to expand their utterances. They are often referred to as stuck single word gestalts.
Rich Intonation - Gestalt language processors have been called ‘intonation babies’. This is because they are attracted to the high emotion and intonation of utterances. It may be difficult to understand what they are trying to say, but the intonation gives it away. If you listen closely, you may recognize the tune from their favorite TV show, movie or book.
Unintelligible Long Strings of Language - This is the trickiest to determine. You are unable to understand what the child is saying, These children are frequently mislabeled as using ‘jargon’. The reason their language is unintelligible is because they haven’t meteorically caught up yet to these long strings of language, and have a harder time hearing the word unit so it sounds like a big jumble to those who don’t understand gestalt language processing.