Language Disorders- Terms for final ESSAY

standardization sample

a sample used to establish reliable "norms" for the population it represents

validity

Meaning a test measures what it claims to measure.

reliability

Meaning a test's results are consistent, and the error in measurement is small.

norm-referenced

A type of standardized test that compares the client's scores to a norming sample.

age equivalent scores

a norm referenced score that classifies raw scores according to age level.

standard scores

A norm-referenced score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

imitation

Mirroring/repeating the client's actions or sounds.

child-directed approach

A kind of therapy approach where the clinician follows the child's lead.

indirect language stimulation

A child-directed approach that provides a simple, accessible model of the mapping between the child's actions and the language that can be used to describe them. Often used to "tempt" the client to talk.

clinician directed approach

A therapy approach that the clinician leads/ is in charge of. The client follows the clinicians lead.

Milieu teaching

A hybrid approach to therapy, that is naturalistic in promoting language or communication in everyday contexts. Sometimes referred to as incidental teaching.

Focuses on...

1. environmental arrangement

2. responsive interaction

3. conversation based concepts that use the child's interests or initiations as opportunities for modeling/prompts

stimulus

A thing or event that evokes a response/reaction. Could be prompts and cues. Can term-19be toys, pictures, books, etc.

prompt

The one thing that elicits, or asks for, the response from the client.

cue

Anything that helps or assists the cleint in producing the target behavior. Can be verbal or visual.

target response

The behavior/set of behaviors/response that the clinician is wanting to elicit/target in therapy.

mean length of utterance

The average number of morphemes per utterance.

syntax

Sentence structure, basic components of a correctly organized sentence.

baseline

A clients current level of functioning, before beginning intervention.

systematic programming

Designing an orderly sequence of training steps that are designed to cause the client to produce a selected language behavior. Begins with maximum support and gradually withdraws support.

generalization

The ability of a client to be able to produce new skills in different situations. Being able to do a skill not only in the clinic, but at home, school, etc.

speech act

an utterance that serves a function in communication

specific language impairment

The term used when a developmental language disorder is the child's only impairment.

developmental language disorder

A language disorder that is present from birth.

evidence based practice

the conscious, unbiased use of current best research results in making decisions about the care of individual clients. Combining clinical expertise and best available external clinical evidence/research.

expansion

Taking a client utterance and adding syntactic content to make it a more acceptable adult utterance. This does not add semantic content.

extension

Taking a client utterance and extending it by adding semantic content to it.

discourse

the use of spoken or written language in a social context.

modeling

a clinician directed approach that comes from the social learning theory, that uses a third person (model), where the client observes the target behavior produced by the model and (hopefully) produces the behavior as a result of this.

criterion

the predetermined criteria, or level of performance that is used in a criterion-referenced to determine a child's own level of performance without comparison to others.

criterion-referenced

a type of standardized test that does not compare the individuals performance to a norming sample. It determines if the child can attain a certain level of performance.

leveling

When a clinician takes the client up or down a "level" based on the clients performance, and needs.

morphology

The internal structure of words. This is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest unit of language that carry meaning.

semantics

Knowledge of vocabulary/word meaning

pragmatics

The social use of language

language difference

a rule-governed language style that deviates from the standard usage of language in mainstream culture, but is not indicative of a limitation in the capacity to learn language.

reinforcement

any event that follows the behavior as a consequence to increase the likelihood of the behavior occurring again.

treatment objectives

observable, measurable, time bound goals in therapy that the clinician is targeting.

literacy

The competent ability to read and write.

Type Token Ratio

A measure that is used to asses lexical diversity. Involves counting the total number of words (tokens) in a 50-utterance speech sample and dividing this number into the number of different words (types) in the sample.