Daily Archives: 2024-05-10

What if a Delay in English Acquisition Leads to a Shy, Silent Personality?: Overcoming Emotional Instability with Oral Language Developmental Delays

Confident with a loud voice, the child reads English passages, showing more accurate English pronunciation than before with an appropriate speed, demonstrating even more fluent reading.

김예경ㅣYekyung Kim, BSc.

Student A, who transferred from a Korean elementary school to an English-speaking school and then back to a Korean school, did not achieve satisfactory learning outcomes in the English-speaking school.

 

In English cognitive assessments, the child showed language skills corresponding to the average level in English-speaking environments, while demonstrating high language skills in Korean cognitive assessments. However, it was confirmed that the child was achieving very low levels of performance in short-term memory and oral language components, especially in the oral language aspect.

 

This low level of oral language acquisition issues appears to be a common problem found in children with English language delays that our institution and Dr. Cho have been consistently discovering over the past 20 years. This seems to stem from underdevelopment or maldevelopment of relevant language areas in the brain from birth. This problem cannot be overcome simply through repetitive learning; instead, it leads to serious emotional and behavioral problems due to the rigid Korean-style education system.

 

In the initial stages of treatment, the child lacked confidence in English overall, read quietly, and could not express their opinions clearly. The child looked overwhelmed when reading English passages, struggled to understand them, and could not clearly and confidently explain their thoughts. Attempts were made to overcome these issues through conventional educational methods over 2-3 years, but it led to emotional issues such as depression and anxiety, hindering the development of independent thinking and delaying not only English acquisition but also normal personality development.

 

The ability to confidently read aloud from a book is a prerequisite for proficient English reading comprehension. Therefore, it is important for children and adolescents with insufficient English reading and comprehension abilities to understand the correspondence between letters and sounds. Especially in English, where the correspondence between letters and sounds is irregular, and the same spelling can be pronounced in various ways or spelled differently, it is not easy to grasp these rules without proper guidance in English reading development education.

 

To address the child’s confidence issues and develop the essential correspondence between letters and sounds in English reading development, the following psycho-educational strategies were researched and implemented:

 

In clinical sessions, the child’s problems related to low self-esteem and feelings of inferiority about English acquisition were addressed by raising awareness of their emotions. These issues were then treated behaviorally through a scientific approach.

 

During psycho-educational sessions, the Words-Voice Connection Strategy for the child was developed to help them connect their voice with the letters, allowing them to hear the teacher’s pronunciation while visually pointing to the letters and connecting them with sounds. Additionally, to enhance pronunciation and articulation, the Loud Voice Strategy was directly applied to strengthen the child’s own voice.

 

The Confident Reading Comprehension Strategy was applied to help the child regain confidence by checking their understanding of what they read aloud and providing detailed explanations for parts they did not understand, helping them comprehend and progress through English texts confidently.

 

These therapeutic strategies have been implemented for about 6 months now.

 

Now, the child reads English passages confidently with a loud voice, and their English pronunciation has become more accurate than before. They maintain an appropriate speed, demonstrating even more fluent reading.

 

“If we set a scale where 1 means “do not understand” and 10 means “fully understand”, how much do you understand now?”

 

“Before I think I was at 0 because I didn’t understand anything at school, but now it’s 8.”

 

Through consistent practice in English reading, we anticipate that the child will be able to enjoy learning at school with a joyful heart!

 

 

Yekyung Kim, Active Learning Coordinator, Active Learning Center / The Tree Group

Distraction & Mindfulness 2

조용범ㅣYong Cho, Ph.D.

A child’s interesting behavior was observed. While sitting on the sofa, their hands continuously touched their face and head, twisting and turning, while their body moved up and down, legs shaking and constantly in motion.

 

A child visited our clinic. They were exceptionally bright and well-mannered. The child believed multi-tasking was a reasonable behavior with confidence. Although the child excelled in studies and seemed flawless academically, the parents were concerned about their scattered attention during homework, because the child did multiple homework and seemed distracted. However, the child thought such behavior was a good learning strategy.

 

It was the first therapy session. While quietly conversing with the child, their interesting behavior was observed. While sitting on the sofa, their hands continuously touched their face and head, twisting and turning, while their body moved up and down, legs shaking and constantly in motion. Of course, the child was completely unaware of these actions.

 

 

We suggested trying mindfulness with the child. Though they had tried it before, they didn’t seem interested and found meditation boring, not finding much significance to it. We started with the body scan mindfulness.

 

We guided the child to focus their attention, bit by bit, from the tips of their toes to the top of their head, on different parts of their body.

 

When the child felt the urge for various actions with their hands, feet, or other body parts, we asked them to simply notice it without moving and concentrate on the part of the body they were already focused on.

 

The child found it challenging. The child twitched and fidgeted as if electricity was passing through them.

 

After about five minutes of mindfulness, we asked the child about their experience. They expressed surprise and clarity, realizing they didn’t know they wanted to move their body like that, and they became aware of their body for the first time.

 

We named the behavior of twisting and touching their body after mindfulness as ‘Monkey Dance’. For homework, the child was tasked to practice the mindfulness. 

 

The following week, the child no longer showed Monkey Dance.

Distraction & Mindfulness 1

조용범ㅣYong Cho, Ph.D.

When we close our eyes for a moment, images and thoughts pass through our minds like scenes from a movie, filling our minds with numerous thoughts, emotions, and images.

 

Attention deficit is a representative symptom of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In many Korean households of previous generations, highly energetic and active children were not a major concern; instead, they were often regarded as lively and full of vitality. It was commonly believed that their hyperactive behavior would improve as they grew older, and adults would often reassure by saying that all children were like that when they were young.

 

Of course, in the West, not all children with severe attention deficits were pathologized. Energetic and lively children were often distinguished from rebellious troublemakers referred to as “brats.” However, during the 20th century, there was a shift in perceiving such behavior problems, observed both at school and at home, of children who did not follow adults’ instructions and could not control their actions, as indicative of a bad personality or a naughty child, leading to the consideration of it as a disorder. Various fields of mental health and education began to observe and study such behaviors, and in the 1960s, symptoms like ADHD began to be included in diagnostic systems.

Since various forms of attention deficit behaviors, also known as externalization symptoms, are sometimes exhibited by all humans, not all cases of attention deficit are necessarily severe problems. When we close our eyes for a moment, images and thoughts pass through our minds like scenes from a movie, filling our minds with numerous thoughts, emotions, and images.

 

Throughout history, humans have employed religious activities such as prayer or meditation to tame this restlessness of the mind. These religious activities have been somewhat scientifically formalized and are now utilized in everyday life under the name of mindfulness. Through mindfulness, the effectiveness of emotional and behavioral stability has been demonstrated in various studies.

 

(To be continued in the next article)

“Anger” is a precious gift!

조용범ㅣYong Cho, Ph.D.

‘Anger’ is undoubtedly an important gift to humanity when accompanied by the Wise Mind.

‘Anger’ is an emotion we all want to avoid or experience. In today’s society, where losing control of intense emotions is frowned upon, expressing anger or failing to control anger can be seen as a flaw. We often try to avoid feeling angry in various situations, such as when we suffer losses or when things don’t go as planned. 

However, ‘anger’ serves a very useful function for us humans. When we fail or encounter difficulties, ‘anger’ helps us shake off intense feelings of depression and find new paths to move forward. It generates hormones that awaken us, enabling us to confront obstacles.

 

In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), through skill training, we learn that what we perceive as negative ‘anger’ isn’t necessarily bad; it serves valuable functions. Since the release of Dr. Linehan’s DBT workbook in 1993, eliminating negative emotions has not been the ultimate goal of therapy. Rather, the goal is to thoroughly and compassionately understand these so-called negative emotions, to first understand their functions, and then to learn to tolerate them. Understanding and accepting these emotions are crucial therapeutic goals for emotion regulation.

Recent research has published findings on the beneficial functions of ‘anger’. The study suggests that experiencing anger when faced with challenging goals helps in achieving those goals.

 

In experiments involving over 1000 participants, situations such as solving difficult puzzles, playing video games, or scenarios to prevent economic losses, anger was found to enhance problem-solving abilities and prompt rapid responses.

 

In Korea, the Confucian and Buddhist traditions have long recognized this fact and have taught us not to despise the emotion of ‘anger’ but to use it wisely for our development. It encouraged us to reflect on ‘anger’ as a mirror, teaching us not to simply express anger but to resolve it.

So, instead of avoiding ‘anger’, instead of simply expressing it, and without using it to fuel aggression and becoming embodiments of wrath for our goals, understanding the message that ‘anger’ presents to us and resolving it with a calm mind is the key.

‘Anger’ is undoubtedly an important gift to humanity when accompanied by the Wise Mind.

 

It seems that ‘anger’ will be a good topic for future research.

 

Reference

Lench, H. C., Reed, N. T., George, T., Kaiser, K. A., & North, S. G. (2023). Anger has benefits for attaining goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication.

Post in 심리치료 & 건강
Tagged DBT, 마인드풀니스, 화, 분노, 감정