Expanding Receptive and Expressive Skills through Stories (EXPRESS): Language Formulation in Children with Selective Mutism and Other Communication Needs is a resource that provides a specific treatment approach for professional speech-language pathologists working with children with selective mutism and other language delays or disorders including language learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, or for children learning English as a second language. It is a program for expanding receptive and expressive language skills at varying stages of language development, with five levels of communication to allow the clinician to start at the appropriate level for each child, and progress through the levels.The "EXPRESS" approach includes activity modules corresponding to classic children's stories. Children's literature is used as a tool for presenting activities designed to help children learn specific language skills, and supports the Common Core State Standards. Each of the modules requires the corresponding storybook that can be obtained individually or found within "The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury", a compendium that includes all the stories.Using "EXPRESS", children listen to the stories and through the activities presented acquire key concepts, ideas, and details about the material.
Vocabulary is enhanced through drawing, describing, and demonstration. Children also have an opportunity to make inferences from the textual material through the question-answer routines developed for each story. Creativity and imagination are fostered using sentence formulation and story generation. "EXPRESS" also includes forms to help the clinician monitor progress and a PluralPlus companion website with video links to the stories and downloadable items from the book such as activity cards and scoring sheets.