Purpose: For speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in schools, outcome measurement is an important element of practice, enabling us to evaluate the efficacy of our service provision and guiding future decision making, funding, and resource allocation. When selecting outcomes to measure, it is helpful to consider both the level at which…

Purpose: As is the case with children who rely on spoken language, speech-language pathologists must support and track the expressive language development of children with complex communication needs who use graphic symbols to communicate. This research note presents a framework of the progression of expressive English sentence development using…

Purpose: This study was designed to (a) compare the speech fluency of school-age children who do and do not stutter (CWS and CWNS, respectively) within 2 standard diagnostic speaking contexts (conversation and narration) while also controlling for speaking topic, and (b) examine the extent to which children's performance on such discourse tasks is…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to obtain information regarding the education and experience of preschool and school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) regarding the assessment and treatment of children born with cleft lip and/or palate and to determine their continuing education needs in this area. Method: A 16-item mixed-methods…

The article describes a model of clinical supervision for speech and hearing services. The model includes a continuum perspective to meet the individual needs of supervisees. A focus on the scientific nature of the supervisory process and an understanding of process components are important factors in model implementation. (Author/DB)

This article discusses the construction of tasks used to elicit vocal responses from preschool children with and without communication disorders. Procedures to elicit valid and reliable responses are proposed, and a sample assessment protocol is presented. (Author/DB)

Five receptive and five expressive considerations are presented which serve as guidelines for the selection of informal evaluation tasks. The resulting procedure provides descriptive data on a student's auditory processing skills and his/her ability to use language for various purposes. (Author/CL)

This paper proposes a definition of clinically significant change in communication ability and suggests three evaluation criteria, including determining whether the change resulted from treatment rather than uncontrolled factors, whether the change was real rather than random, and whether the change was important rather than trivial. (Author/JDD)

Examines issues related to designing and conducting randomized studies of speech/language treatment effects (clinical trials) in the public school setting and provides suggestions regarding how such studies can be effectively organized and implemented in schools by clinicians. The work of the Communication Sciences and Disorders Research Group in…

This article provides a rationale for incorporating early literacy screening into speech language services for young children with communication impairments. Recommendations concern identifying which children and what areas of literacy should be targeted for screening. Guidelines for interpreting findings and for using screening to guide early…

Emphasizes the importance of collecting data on the prevalence of specific communication disorders in children and data on both the short-term and long-term impact of speech/language interventions in the schools. (Author/DB)

This article explains characteristics associated with the use and evaluation of criterion-referenced measures by speech language clinicians, in contrast to norm-referenced measures. Guidelines are offered for the evaluation and selection of standardized criterion-referenced measures and for the development and ongoing evaluation of informal…

This introduction to a clinical forum on children with speech, language, and hearing difficulties focuses on assessment validity. The paper emphasizes that assessment validity depends on the purpose for which the clinician employs the assessment and the inferences the clinician intends to draw, and that assessment interpretation involves degrees…

This article describes an observational assessment procedure designed for infants, toddlers, and preschool children. The procedure is intended to link assessment with intervention by determining what supports and what compromises a child's performance, through a holistic team assessment involving a speech-language pathologist, motor specialist,…