Purpose: As a representative form of discourse, oral narratives offer a sensitive, flexible, and ecologically valid tool for language evaluation. Nevertheless, oral narrative assessments in mainland China remain uncommon among school-age children. Therefore, this study explores the effectiveness of narrative microstructural assessment in…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to ascertain the extent to which school-based speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) assessment practices with individual English learners (ELs) align with federal legislation and professional practice guidelines. Specifically, we were interested in examining SLPs' use of multiple tools during individual EL…

Purpose: The aim of this tutorial is to support speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') application of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) in assessment and treatment practices with children with language impairment. Method: This tutorial reviews the framework of the ICF, describes the implications of the ICF…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how well a kindergarten dynamic assessment of decoding predicts future reading difficulty at 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade and to determine whether the dynamic assessment improves the predictive validity of traditional static kindergarten reading measures. Method: With a small variation in sample…

Purpose: The purpose of this experiment was to determine if there is alternate forms reliability for paper- and computer-administered standardized vocabulary tests. Another purpose was to determine whether the behavioral ratings of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) would improve during the computer-administered testing sessions…

Purpose: This article addresses sentence comprehension as a requirement of reading comprehension within the framework of the narrow view of reading that was advocated in the prologue to this forum. The focus is on the comprehension requirements of complex sentences, which are characteristic of school texts. Method: Topics included in this…

A proposed strategy for language assessment advocates a combination of descriptive and formal assessment measures. This approach involves a parent-clinician interview, parent-child observations, clinician-directed formal and nonformal assessment procedures, and a parent-clinician interpretation. An elaborated sample of language assessment is…

The article suggests that comparability, representativeness, and typicality must be considered along with length when collecting language samples. A framework is offered for selecting or devising tasks, and one successful battery is described which has been field tested on language-disordered children with syntax problems. (CL)

The framework for assessment of Spanish-English speaking students utilizes qualitative and quantitative procedures to assess the student's language status, linguistic-cultural background, socioeconomic status, and communicative abilities. Measures may include observations, interviews, questionnaires, adapted test instruments, and naturally…

A study with 10 developmentally delayed children between the ages of 52 and 80 months found that test-retest samples resulted in greater variability for lexical and morphological measurements than split-half transcripts. It was also found that 50-utterance sample segments contained 70-80 percent of the lexical information found in 100-utterance…

Purpose: This study examined 2nd-grade teachers' perceptions of the academic, social, and behavioral competence of students with speech sound disorders (SSDs). Method: Forty-eight 2nd-grade teachers listened to 2 groups of sentences differing by intelligibility and pitch but spoken by a single 2nd grader. For each sentence group, teachers rated…

The paper examines two general methods of scoring oral reading inventories employing textual passages. Either the total number of oral alterations can be used as an index to reading ability, or only those alterations that disrupt the semantic structure of the text can be used. (Author)

The Social Interactive Coding System (SICS) assesses the continuous verbal interactions of preschool children as a function of play areas, addressees, script codes, and play levels. This paper describes the 26 subjects and the setting involved in SICS development, coding definitions and procedures, training procedures, reliability, sample…

Changes in feature awareness and production during phonological intervention were examined in four preschool children with severe phonological impairments. Results indicated that the rate and degree of change in awareness did not always parallel production performance, suggesting that both feature awareness and production should be considered when…

This article presents a series of decision trees to help in planning assessment and intervention with handicapped children between three months and five years of age. A series of assessment questions lead to suggestions for intervention. Steps in using the decision trees are given and a case example presented. (Author/DB)