The Linguistic Specificity Worksheet in PDF

Writing Skills: Linguistic Specificity

Speech-language pathologists understand that language-impaired children with lexical deficits often employ vague terms like “thing” or “stuff”; this exercise guides students toward more specific, descriptive expression.

Language-impaired learners regularly employ vague words in their speech and writing, limiting their ability to adequately communicate. One common example of a non-specific word students use to express an emotion is “upset.” This exercise challenges students to replace the word “upset” with more specific emotions like “disappointed,” “frustrated,” “outraged,” or “sullen.” Students are tasked with substituting specific nouns and adjectives in sentences for underlined, vague terms like “good” and “people”. This worksheet (complete with an answer key containing a variety of possible replacement options) is particularly effective in group sessions and the classroom, as group contexts provide students with the opportunity to hear a variety of replacement options, allowing them to assess the effectiveness of these options.