If you are a special education teacher, you may have heard of the term gestalt language processing or gestalt language processor (GLP), especially if you work with students who are autistic. This was a term that was new to me as of a few years ago, but the more I learned about the research the more I recognized that I already had a sense of the differences between analytical language processing and GLP- I just didn’t know it yet! It’s likely you do, too.
It is important to understand in more detail what makes a student a GLP because the ways we teach them will be different than a student who processes language analytically. This post will help you get a basic understanding of how to define a GLP, what makes this different than analytical processing, and what you as a teacher can do to support your students who are GLPS.
What is Gestalt Language Processing?
Gestalts mean “total” in German, and in the context of language processing it means someone who hears and understands language in total. Think of the words of a sentence as blocks- each word comes together to build a bigger unit, a sentence or phrase. All children, no matter what type of language processor they are, hears language spoken and attributes these words to meaning in their environment. An analytical language processor, which is most typically developing children, hears their parents speak and identifies those individual blocks, or single words, in their speech. For example, their parent might say, “Here you go, here’s your lunch!” and they attribute “lunch” with the presentation of their mid-day meal. Over time, they will come to add more blocks to their understanding so that they can differentiate when their parent says, “here’s your dinner!” or “here is sister’s lunch!” These differences give the listener information about what meal is coming and who it is for.
Let’s use that same example but apply it to a gestalt language processor. They hear their parents say, “Here you go, here’s your lunch!” but instead of focusing on the smaller block of language- lunch- they focus on all the blocks put together. They might attribute, “Here you go” or “here’s your lunch!” with the presentation of food, or anything the parent hands to them. You might hear this child say, “Here you go!” whenever lunch is presented or you might hear them say, “here’s your lunch” whenever food is offered. They hear and process language in total, and these gestalts become the bedrock of their expressive communication.
What can be tricky about gestalts is that it is not always obvious what the gestalt means. In the lunch example above, if the student says, “here’s your lunch!” whenever food is presented or when we suspect they are hungry, we have a pretty good idea that this gestalt is tied to food and eating. But what if the child only said, “here you go” whenever they were hungry? This might be confusing to teachers or therapists who don’t know the child. The child’s speech does not meet the criteria from a grammatical perspective for a request, but to that child that string of words is meaningful and to them is a clear indication that they are asking for something. Gestalts don’t always match the context of what the child is doing perfectly, which is why information gathering from caregivers and other more familiar teachers is so important.
Classroom Strategies for Gestalt Language Processors
You might be wondering why it matters to identify a student as a GLP or not. It should change how you teach and interact with your students once you identify this difference in their language development. Think about a typical 1:1 working session with a student in your classroom. You probably ask the student WH questions like, “What sound does this letter make?” or “What’s the answer to the problem?” Your student who is a GLP might answer you by repeating back the phrase you just said rather than giving you the answer. We ask TONS of WH questions throughout the day as teachers, but this can cause more confusion for our students who process our language differently.
Take for example letter sound ID. You might typically teach this skill by holding up a letter and asking the student, “what sound is this?” and expecting them to say /b/ or /m/. For a GLP, we want to be more explicit and help them identify only what is important to attribute from our speech. In this example, instead of asking the WH question, we should hold up the letter sound and say the sound, expecting repetition. This is explicit instruction, and is really valuable for teaching a GLP any skills whether it be math, a social skill, or science.
Another way our teaching should change is to switch up how we want our students to respond while doing their school work. For a verbal student, it can be tempting to ask them to answer questions orally all day because, well, they can! This doesn’t mean that we should. Students who are GLPS should be given different ways to respond to questions that don’t rely on verbal speech. Some autistic advocates tell us that they use preferred gestalts as a way to self-soothe in stressful situations or as a stim because it sounds pleasant to say. We don’t want to penalize our students for giving a gestalt when they were engaging in one of these functions of language because we needed or were expecting a different verbal response. If students can be given the option to use word banks, point to their answer, type to communicate, or write their answer, it will allow them to by-pass gestalts and communicate their knowledge. Think about how you’re presenting learning to your students and in what ways you can provide more ways to respond using total communication.
Don’t Make This Mistake When Working with GLPS!
The biggest thing to keep in mind while working with a student who is a GLP is not to stifle their gestalts. You might ask a student a question and they could respond with something that seems totally unrelated to you. Here is an example from my classroom- once I was working with a student and asked her what she wanted to do first, spelling or coins. This student was new to me, and when she responded, “the wipers on the bus go swish swish swish” I was really confused. I asked her the same question again, and she kept repeating back the same gestalt. I wrote the words “spelling” and “coins” on a white board and asked her to point to the one she wanted to do first, thinking she didn’t understand me. What I didn’t know- and what I discovered quickly afterwards- was that this particular gestalt for this particular learner meant that she was upset about something. She attributed the feeling of being sad with rain on the windshield of the bus! I found this out after she burst into tears when I started to present work, and then confirmed later when I asked her family about it. From then on, whenever she used this gestalt we knew she was upset about something and worked to uncover what was bothering her.
In this situation, I could’ve pushed for compliance and waited for her to respond with the answer I needed, or tried to cut her off when she was repeating the gestalt. Had I done that, I would’ve been ignoring her self advocacy! From then on we kept a running list of her known gestalts so that no matter who was working with her she would be understood. This is a great strategy for all students, but especially for our GLPs in the classroom.
It is also important to note that students who are GLPs are drawn to language differently. You might notice that GLPs often sing or chant parts of songs, video clips, nursery rhymes, or phrases with lots of intonation. While we don’t exactly know why, we do know that a GLP is more likely to attend to language when it is presented in this kind of preferred format. Knowing this should also inform our teaching practices, but you probably are already using this strategy! Do you know anyone who learned the alphabet NOT by singing their ABCs? The sing-songy element helps us remember the order but It is also why so many kids mess up the LMNO part of the song or think that this is all one letter- they’re hearing a gestalt! Do you teach your students the days of the week by using songs? Do you use movement break videos to help them learn to skip count? These are all awesome tools to help your learners who are GLPs attend to language and attribute it to meaningful contexts. What in your teaching throughout the day can you add extra intonation, songs, and chants to?
How Do I Know If My Student Is a Gestalt Language Processor?
So how do you know if a child is a gestalt language processor or not? The answer is through language samples! If you suspect you might have a student demonstrating this tendency to see language as larger chunks, you should keep data on what students say and when. Language samples are pretty easy and informal ways to analyze speech but can provide us with so much information about a student, even in a 5 minute sample. Observe your student in a setting where you know they will be likely to speak more, like during play time or a favorite activity. Write down what they say and what they are doing when they say it. If you hear long strings of words tied together that might not match what is going on, you probably are working with a gestalt language processor. Talk to your speech pathologist if you suspect this- they will be able to help you analyze a language sample to find clues about the kind of language processor your student is. From there, they can even tell you what stage gestalt language processor your student is- this is helpful for pairing the right interventions to the needs of the student. If you need a language sample sheet, I have one included in my data sheet pack here. canva
There are so many great resources out there to help you identify more strategies about how to teach and work with GLPs. I would highly suggest going to the Meaningful Speech website to learn more. I took her course and found it to be SO helpful in my understanding of working with GLPs, and it is something I refer back to often.
Sources and Resources
Prizant, B. M., & Rydell, P. J. (1984). The development of communicative behavior in autistic children: Implications for a theory of language development. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 14(2), 187–203. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02171025
Prizant, B. M., & Duchan, J. F. (1990). Social and communicative development in autism: A functional developmental perspective. Springer-Verlag.
Prizant, B. M., & Wetherby, A. M. (2005). The SCERTS Model: A comprehensive educational approach for children with autism spectrum disorders. Brookes Publishing.
Miller, J. F., & Paul, R. (2001). Emergent communication strategies of children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44(3), 507–521. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2001/041)
Miller, L. J., & Prizant, B. M. (2017). The role of gestalt language processing in autism. Autism Spectrum Quarterly, 5(2), 34-46.
Tager-Flusberg, H., & Kasari, C. (2013). Language development in autism spectrum disorders: From theory to practice. Psychology Press.
Vargas, T., & Castro, M. (2019). Gestalt language processing and its role in early communication development for children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49(6), 2328-2340. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04038-1