A study involving 10 children with language impairments revealed high correlations between scores on the CELI (Carrow Elicited Language Inventory) and spontaneous language samples (LS). Findings suggested, however, that although the CELI identifies children needing language intervention, it cannot replace LS in developing appropriate language…

The study examined test-retest reliability of three subtests of the Goldman-Fristoe-Woodcock Auditory Skills Test Battery (Diagnostic Auditory Discrimination Test, Auditory Selective Attention Test, and Auditory Memory Tests) with 20 five-12 year olds. The only test-retest significant differences noted were on the Selective Attention subtest.…

Nine aphasia tests were reviewed using seven psychometric criteria appropriate to standardized tests. The need for test manuals to contain a wide range of psychometric information is discussed, and, in particular, the role of subject description in test standardization is emphasized. (Author/CL)

Four examples of general language performance measures for preschoolers are described to suggest a rationale for test selection. Advantages and limitations are noted for the Houston Test for Language Development, Preschool Language Scale, the Hannah-Gardner Preschool Language Screening Test, and the Test of Early Language Development. (CL)

An analysis of Revised Preschool Language Scale (PLS) results on 672 preschool children reveal that one age-level grouping and five individual items appear to be inappropriately placed within the scale. Sex differences for both the auditory comprehension and verbal ability subtests, and for the total scale, were clinically insignificant.…

The usefulness of the grammaticality task as a clinical tool with the language impaired child is discussed by presenting the task as a method of eliciting a language sample. Data are presented supporting the validity of the procedure. (Author/SBH)

Three tests of grammatical ability (Carrow Elicited Language Inventory, Test of Language Development, and Clinical Evaluation of Language Functions) were evaluated for content-oriented test construction. Content domains were found deficient when judged against an external standard as well as when examined according to their own content…

Thirty children from two age levels (4 to 5 and 6 to 7 years) with diagnosed language problems were tested with four informal methods of language evaluation: spontaneous language sampling, elicited imitation, sentence completion, and grammatical judgment. Overall comparisons between tasks revealed significant correlations between spontaneous…

The language age equivalent scores on the Verbal Language Development Scale calculated from mother, father, and teacher reports on 15 preschool children were compared and found to be highly correlated. (Author)

To determine how many occurrences of a syntactic structure are necessary to provide sampling reliability, two one-half hour spontaneous language samples were elicited from each of 15 language disordered students (5 to 6 years old). Sessions were divided into two periods, one for the child's telling about pictures and toys and the other for…

The investigation explored the usefulness of the Noise Subtest of the Test of Auditory Discrimination and the Memory for Sequence subtest of the Goldman-Fristoe Woodcock Auditory Skills Test Battery for initial identification of central auditory function in normal children. (Author/CL)

The article describes a computerized language analysis system that produces a detailed description and summary statistics to track language growth within student populations. This microcomputer-based language assessment system simplifies identification of deficits in productive language, enabling the teacher or clinician to spend more time…

The Elicited Language Inventory (ELI) was administered in standardized fashion and in a modified procedure with contextually supported cues and grammatical morpheme use under the two ELI presentation conditions was compared with use of the same morphemes in spontaneous speech. Results favored modified use of the ELI with contextually cued items…

Language samples were elicited from 18 kindergarten and 18 second-grade students, using three variations of an imperative sentence language sampling procedure. (Author/CL)

Revised methods of scoring the Token Test and Reporter's Test were developed to accommodate specific types of errors committed by language-disordered children during a previous standardization study. Test modifications are explained as are the results of administering the revised tests to both normal and language-disordered school-aged children.…