1. Language Assessment

2. Purposes of Assessment – Identifying children with language disorders – Identifying areas of deficit in a child’s language – Designing appropriate language intervention programs – Monitoring changes resulting from intervention

3. Identifying children with language disorders  Language displayed is below or different from our impression of what is “normal” for a child at that age  Scales of normal development along with data collected on normal children  Language tests standardized on normal children

4. Identifying areas of deficit in a child’s language  (i.e. description of the language problem)  Behavioristic model  categories of behaviors ex:questions, statements, commands, described according to the rate and frequency of occurrence such as “stimulus overselectivity” or “response overgeneralization”  Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities model  problems categorized in terms of subtests such as “ visual or auditory association problem”

5.  Auditory processing models  deficits in the processes of decoding information contained in the auditory signal such as “ auditory discrimination” or “ auditory sequencing”  Linguistic model  problems within various linguistic levels such as “phonological problems”, “morphological problems”  Semantic models

6. Structural analysis involves Examining patterns exhibited by the child and the interactant Determining areas of strength and deficit Looking for contextual factors that account for the variability in the child’s performance

7.  structural analysis  leads to the identification of :  what is being attempted by the child  what is being accomplished  what conditions promote or impede success  And so offers suggested directions for therapy  Is an ongoing assessment approach

8. Terminology – Preassessment – Screening – Assessment – Diagnosis – Evaluation

9. Methods of assessment  Obtaining information from parents and other adults – such as preassessment forms family interview  Observations of child’s performance in naturalistic context  Using standardized tests of language  Using non-standardized tests of language

10. – Spontaneous language samples – Interviewing – Questions for information – Elicited imitation – Sentence completion – Naming – Pointing – Acting out tasks – Retelling a story or an event

11. – Reenactment – Pretending – Games – Set ups

12. Assessment Questions – Does the child have a language problem – What is causing the problem – What are the areas of deficit – What are the regularities in the child’s language performance – What is recommended for this child