The efficacy of Visualising and Verbalising: are we asking too much?

‘Visualising and Verbalising’ is a technique that has been purported to enhance language comprehension. Although there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that an intervention method such as ‘Visualising and Verbalising’ may be effective in improving language comprehension in students with a language impairment, few, if any studies have incorporated experimentation to investigate treatment that uses this approach. The present study investigated the effects of comprehension teaching with children aged between 9;0 and 15;1 who had a language impairment. The study found that students appeared to benefit equally from ‘Visualising and Verbalising’ training and ‘traditional’ comprehension training. It is postulated that Visualising and Verbalising places too many demands on the working memory of children with a language impairment to be more effective than traditional approaches.