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11 %u00a9 Elklan Training Limited 2025Elklan Supporting Gestalt Language Processing %u2013 a Total Communication ApproachThe diagram below illustrates the stages of Analytical Language ProcessingThe diagram is based on descriptions of stages given by Peters (1983) and Blanc (2012, 2023) but the colours have been included for this publication. The numbers 1 to 6 represent the pathway of stages and are not representative of age.2.2 WHAT IS GESTALT LANGUAGE PROCESSING?Gestalt is pronounced with a /sh/ pronunciation. It comes from the German word meaning form or shape. The gestalt refers to a whole chunk of speech. Gestalt Language Processing is where the gestalt is heard, processed and stored as one whole meaning. Ann Peters (1983) describes how a child picks up gestalts as units of meaning from the stream of language that they hear. Gestalts can be strings of words or sometimes a single word which may have a different meaning from that which the word/s usually convey. Gestalt Language Processing is proposed as possibly being associated with episodic memory (Prizant 1983). Episodic memory can store information from personal experience and these experiences may have associated places, sounds, smells and emotions. The source from which the gestalt was first derived may also have time, place, emotional and sensory associations and these associations may determine the gestalt%u2019s meaning. When the gestalt is used for speaking, the word or words are expressed with the same intonation, accent, rhythm with which they were processed.