Project due

Speech Sound Disorder Assessment Project Guidelines & Rubric

Overview

Working in groups, students will research and demonstrate the administration of a published standardized speech

sounds disorder assessment tool. Students will be required to present in your selected tool in class. The presentation

should include a critique of the various components of the tool. The Instructor will assign a test instrument to each group.

Each group is required to produce slides for your presentation with relevant content. However, all components of the

presentation are to be delivered during the class period. Students are encouraged to be creative in their delivery of this

presentation. The delivery model is based on group preferences (e.g., YouTube video, Live Oral Presentation, etc.). The

Instructor will need to approve your choice of research article.

Test Critique Guidelines

1. Title and authors

2. Copyright year

3. Purpose of test, including any subtests.

4. Age range

5. Standardization information. Provide brief description followed by personal critique.

6. Administration procedures, including any accommodations or modifications for culturally and linguistically

different clients. Provide brief description followed by personal critique.

7. Recording procedures

8. Scoring procedures, including modifications for culturally and linguistically different clients.

9. Interpretation/Analysis

10.Personal critique. Include discussion of appropriateness for multicultural populations.

Note:

- Use APA-7 format

- Summarize, do not regurgitate (repeat without analyzing or comprehending) what is in the manual.

Speech Sound Disorder Assessment Project Guidelines & Rubric

Test Critique Outline

Below are two samples illustrating the content areas for your research article review. These areas may vary depending on

the type of research you are reviewing. Please note that the review must be in narrative and not bulleted form.

Assessment Type

Begin your review with a brief description (summary) of the particular assessment under investigation. This

section should be before the title. Do not repeat this information in the body of the review.

The Performance of Low-Income African American Children on the Preschool Language Scale-3

Qi, C. H., Kaiser, A. P., Milan, S. E., Yzquierdo, Z., & Terry B. Hancock, T. B. (2004).

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46 (3), 576-590.

This study examined the performance of low-income African American (AA) preschoolers on the preschool Language

Scale-3 (PLS-3, I. L. Zimmerman, V.G. Steiner, & R.E. Pond, 1992). The goals of the study were threefold:

1. To examine low-income AA children’s language performance on the PLS-3.

2. Investigate the reliability and validity of the PLS-3 when used with this population.

3. Examine the relationship between language performance on the PLS-3 and related SES variables (marital status,

household income, and mother’s education level) and the child’s gender.

Participants

- The participants were 701 AA boys (n=361) and girls (n=340) from Nashville, TN.

- 50 European American (EA) children from the same centers and classrooms served as a comparison group.

- Average age was 43 months, with a range of 36-53 months.

- The children were from low-income families (80% received state income, house, or child-care subsidies).

Procedure

- The PLS-3, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Third Edition (PPVT-III), and Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT)

were administered to each child.

- A spontaneous language sample was elicited and videotaped.

Speech Sound Disorder Assessment Project Guidelines & Rubric

Results

- The mean for the AA sample was 86.09 with a standard deviation of 12.79. This deviation from the normative mean

is statistically significant. The scores were normally distributed.

- PLS-3 total scores of AA children not significantly different from those of EA children of similar SES background.

- Significant difference in performance between AA and EA children was found on four items.

- Demographic factors accounted for only 4% of the variance.

- PLS-3 reliability is acceptable.

- There was little indication that the auditory comprehension and expressive communication subscales actually

represent distinct constructs (construct validity)

Discussion

- PLS-3 results in AA children show actual deficits in language skills.

- Item order of presentation correctly discriminates the language abilities of AA children.

Critic

- In determining PLS-3 validity in identifying AA children with language disorders, the investigators compared PLS-3

performance with PPVT-II, EVT and MLU performance. However, it is questionable whether these tests are truly

culturally unbiased.

- The investigators state that 80% of the families were low-income because they received state income, housing, or

child-care subsidies, while the remaining 20% qualified under the low-income inclusion criterion. However, the

investigators fail to explicitly state what this criterion is.

- Additionally, a rather important fact that is frequently overlooked is that the PLSD-3 correctly identifies language

disorder an average of only 72% of the time. This has huge implications for practitioners who use it as the sole

determinant of language disability.

Speech Sound Disorder Assessment Project Guidelines & Rubric

Assessment Type

Begin your review with a brief description (summary) of the particular assessment under investigation. This

section should be before the title. Do not repeat this information in the body of the review.

An Assessment Battery for Identifying Language Impairment in African American Children

Craig, H. K. & Washington, J. A.

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46 (2), 366-379.

This study examined the potential of a selected set of informal language measures to distinguish African American (AA)

children with language impairments (LI) from typically developing peers. The five measures were:

4. Average length of communication units (MLCU).

5. Frequencies of complex syntax.

6. Number of different words.

7. Responses to Wh-questions.

8. Responses to probes of active and passive sentence constructions.

Participants

- The participants were 72 AA children from metropolitan Detroit. 24 were language impaired and 48 were typically

developing (24 matched for chronological age (CA) and 24 matched for MLCU).

- All were speakers of African American English (AAE).

Procedure

- A spontaneous language sample was collected, a task to elicit responses to Wh- questions was administered, and a

task probing active/passive voice was administered.

Results

- The effects of SES and gender on the five measures were not significant.

- All of the children in the LI group performed lower than their CA match on at least two of the five measures.

- The battery has a sensitivity of 1.00, where sensitivity is the number of participants identified as LI, divided by the

number of LI participants.

Discussion

Speech Sound Disorder Assessment Project Guidelines & Rubric

- All five measures were successful in identifying the group of children enrolled in language intervention from a group

of chronological age peers.

Critique

- It is unclear what criteria the investigators used to designate subjects as speakers of AAE. By their own admission,

“the amount of dialect evidenced in the children’s discourse varied widely.” Was there a quantitative cutoff point or

did use of even one AAE feature qualify one as a speaker of AAE? This is important information that bears directly

on data interpretation.

- What this article speaks to is the importance of dynamic assessment when assessing AA children. The use of

informal assessment tools is critical in distinguishing