Expanding Expression Tool (EET) by fellow Speech Pathologist, Sara L. Smith, is a dynamic, multi-sensory approach for improving oral language and writing for students in kindergarten through high school. There are many reasons why you should use expanding expression tool visuals both in school and home. Let’s take a closer look at the program and how I have incorporated it into my speech and language therapy practice.
Expanding Expression Tool Components
Just in case you have not seen an EET kit, here are the basic components:
First, you get the manual with the kit which includes five sections: introduction, general descriptions, additional prompts, organizers, and parent program. You will find baseline data sheets, worksheet activities for each descriptor bead, classroom prompts, student organizers, home activities, and much more in this manual.
Included in the kit are two sets of beads, a large one for classroom instruction and one small strand for individual use. The latter helps students become more independent with expressive language skills in a less conspicuous manner while still getting visual and tactile cues. Parents can purchase the smaller strand for home practice at this link. Basically, each bead represents a descriptor cue for target vocabulary and here is the breakdown:
- Green=What Group does it belong to?
- Blue=What does it Do? What is its Function?
- Eyeball=What does it Look like?
- Wood=What is it Made of?
- Pink=What are its Parts?
- White=Where can you Find it?
- ?=What Else do I know about it?
Also included in the kit are picture cards with familiar objects, which you can break out for immediate EET practice. Some of the cards include the EET coding, which is great for cuing students at their desk. A few of the other cards in this deck offer lesson plan ideas.
The foam dice in the kit are perfect for playing games. Just roll the dice and answer the color-coded question about the target object.
Expanding Expression Tools in Action
Years ago, I used EET with a private language client who was in the fourth grade and received special education programming. She attended private speech and language sessions at my practice, Naperville Therapediatrics, twice weekly for 60 minutes. In August 2013, language testing revealed limited vocabulary use, reduced sentence structure, and delayed comprehension. While she did very well during discrete learning trials, she struggled with retaining and recalling information. Her school special education team asked if I could help increase this student’s ability to use and comprehend vocabulary, especially homophones, so I researched the EET program to address these delays.
When I compared how this client responded at baseline to her responses while using the EET beads, she recalled a little more detail about each subject. Here is one before/ after example taken recently after having covered worksheets for the following: group, function, and “looks like.”
Tell me everything you know about Beluga Whales-
Baseline response on 1/7/2014:
“It has sharp teeth and of course it has to eat fish. Swallows fish. It is a carnivore too because it likes to eat meat. And it can make an echo. If it’s danger and it makes sound.”
Halfway through program on 3/7/2014:
Animals (ocean/sea)
Swims underwater; moves its head (modeled demonstration); eats fishes; uses echolocation
White and Brown
Bones
It has little teeth. They do not chew, they swallow.
See them at aquarium
Analysis
At baseline, she told me about it: group (carnivore), parts (teeth) and what it does (eats fish and echoes.) Using the EET beads, she added a few more details about the following: what it does (moves head, swims underwater), what it looks like (white and brown), made of (bones), and where you may see them (aquarium.) If we look at this data from a percentage standpoint, then she used 3/6 (50%) description points at baseline and 6/6 (100%) details with EET beads. She increased the number of details provided in three other samples too. Continued improvement was noted as we progressed through the workbook programming.
Expanding Expression Tool Seasonal Ideas
Since I’m a big fan of seasonal units and visual cuing, I thought it would be appropriate to take clip art and add lines to the image for EET description. Below are some of my ideas for each season/ holiday:
- New Year’s party hat
- Hot chocolate mug
- Valentine cupcake
- Basketball
- Umbrella
- Flower
- Sun
- Fireworks
- Pail and shovel
- Swimming pool
- Leaf
- Pumpkin
- Turkey
- Snowman
- Christmas tree/ dreidel.
I am so appreciative of Sara’s efforts and hard work in designing this EET program. For details on using EET to improve writing, you can visit my guest post by Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan. If you would like more information about the EET program, then click on the title links below for descriptions and ordering details:
Expanding Expressions Home Page
Nanette Cote is an ASHA certified speech pathologist, published author, and private practice business owner with 30 years experience.
