Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare child language assessment practices of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in school and non-school settings to determine if their place of employment impacts the diagnostic decision-making process. Method: School-based SLPs (e.g., direct service providers employed in preschool and/or K-12…

Purpose: Although language sample analysis is widely recommended for assessing children's expressive language, few school-based speech-language pathologists routinely use it, citing a lack of time, resources, and training (Pavelko, Owens, Ireland, & Hahs-Vaughn, 2016). The purpose of this clinical tutorial is (a) to describe options for…

Purpose: Spoken language sample analysis (LSA) is widely considered to be a critical component of assessment for child language disorders. It is our best window into a preschool child's everyday expressive communicative skills. However, historically, the process can be cumbersome, and reference values against which LSA findings can be…

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists need tools that can accurately estimate bilingual children's language abilities and thus help avoid misdiagnoses. This study addresses this need by investigating the accuracy of a novel curriculum-based dynamic assessment of narratives in distinguishing bilingual children with language difficulties (LDs) from…

Purpose: We explore the extent to which speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are operating under assumptions about speech, language, and literacy that are not supported by evidence or are contradicted by evidence. Method: SLPs (N = 106) marked the degree to which they endorsed or rejected four true and 11 myth (i.e., false) statements on a visual…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to document whether mean length of utterance[subscript SUGAR] (MLU[subscript S]), total number of words (TNW), clauses per sentence (CPS), and/or words per sentence (WPS) demonstrated age-related changes in children with typically developing language, aged 7;0-10;11 (years;months). Method: Participants were…

Purpose: The current study used a case review diagnostic assessment task to examine the diagnostic decisions speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in the United States made after reviewing child language cases. Method: Fourteen SLPs were given 5 case studies that presented either congruent or incongruent results between standardized testing…

Purpose: This commentary responds to the implications for child language intervention of Catts and Kamhi's (2017) call to move from viewing reading comprehension as a single ability to recognizing it as a complex constellation of reader, text, and activity. Method: Reading comprehension, as Catts and Kamhi explain, is very complicated. In this…

Purpose: The present investigation examines the time, effort, and resources that evidence-based practice (EBP) requires, and looks at what types of results are obtained. Method: Principles of EBP as outlined by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association were applied to 3 treatment case studies. Results: The cases took between 3 and 7 hr to…

Purpose: The results of recent survey studies suggest that speech-language pathologists base most of their clinical decisions on information they were taught during their graduate programs, their clinical experience, and the opinions of colleagues (T. Wolf & J. Balderson, 2005; R. Zipoli & M. Kennedy, 2005). This is contrary to the principles of…

Purpose: This paper is a personal reaction to Gillam and Gillam's treatise on evidence-based decision making in schools. This evaluation focuses principally on the costs and benefits of clinicians' search for external evidence, potential problems associated with efforts to grade that evidence, and the integration of this evidence with "internal"…