SHS 719 - Exam 1

What are the main concerns in assessing children of ethnocultural diversity?

Limitations of commonly used standardized tests and the need for alternative assessments

(Assessment should not depend solely on standardized and norm referenced tests)

How should clinicians prepare themselves to make an adequate and fair assessment of children with ethnocultural diversity?

By using process-dependent skills (assess clients language skills in the context of the client's culture)

Checking standardized assessments for appropriate normative groups that apply to the specific client.

State precisely how you would make a diagnosis of a communication disorder after assessing the features of African American English in a child who speaks that dialect.

1. Case History

2. Orofacial Exam

3. Hearing Screening

4. Specific Questions in Family Interview

5. ACCEPTABLE Standardized Tests (EVT)

6. Language Sample

7. Child-Specific/Criterion-Referenced Procedures

INTEGRATED APPROACH

How would you avoid making a mistaken diagnosis of a communication disorder in a child who speaks English influenced by a primary language that is different from English?

Administer assessment in both languages and establish that a disorder exists in both languages

Describe the behavioral approach to categorizing verbal behaviors. Define the specific response units in a behavioral analysis of language (verbal behavior).

There are 6 categories of verbal behaviors:

1. Echoics

2. Mands

3. Tacts

4. Intraverbals

5. Textuals

6. Autoclitics

Skinners approach sees language solely through the lens of behaviorism.

Define criterion-based and client-specific assessment procedures. How are these the same? How do they differ?

Criterion referenced assessment refers to evaluating a child's responses of interests to an empirically determined mastery criterion. Examples of criterion referenced are Percent of Consonants Correct, Percent of Speech Intelligibility, Minimal Competency Core

A client specific assessment avoids all standardized tests and individual items from tests

Same: Use items from home

Different: CC typically needs 15-20 exemplars to calculate percent of correctness and CR does not

Define authentic assessment. What are the strengths and limitations of authentic assessment?

AA emphasizes the use of real-life settings in and out of the classroom. Clinician will assess client in naturally occuring environment

Strengths: Method avoids inappropriate use of standardized tests, samples in natural way, easy to interpret set of communication skills, fewer false positive results in minority children

Limitations: Time consuming, subjective results

What is a minimal competency core? How is it determined? For whom are they most appropriate and why?

A set of the most basic communication skills shared by most speakers of a given age and social context.

Appropriate for linguistically diverse populations because it legitimizes the ordinary talk of every community as a clincial resource

What is dynamic assessment?

In a Dynamic assessment, the clinician provides brief periods of intervention to see if the child's speech-language performance can be improved (Test of Response Modifiability)

Define graduated prompting, testing the limits, and test-teach-retest procedures

Graduated Prompting- the clinician uses a hierarchy of prompts to facilitate the child's responses during the assessment.

Testing The Limits- Contrary to traditional administration of standardized tests, the clinician modified the test procedures to provide elaborate feedback to the child on his or her performance on test items.

Test-Teach-Retest- In this procedure, the clinician first administers a pre-test, then teaches the missing skills (brief intervention), and then reassess the skill to find out if the deficient skill is open to modification.

List and describe the components of a comprehensive and integrated assessment approach, as described in the chapter

1. Case History

2. Hearing Screening

3. Orofacial Exam

4. Interview

5. Standardized Test

6. Speech/Language Sample

7. Analyze S/L Sample

8. Preliteracy and Literacy Skill Assessment

9. Postassessment Counseling

Special Considerations for Case History

Pay greater attention to family communication, ethnocultural background, and preliteracy and literacy environment

What should you concentrate on in Interview?

Concentrate on the child's favorite activities, hobbies, interests, family communication, home literacy environment; academic demands and curricula

Special Considerations for Preliteracy and Literacy Skill Assessment?

Document the home literacy environment and take oral reading and writing samples consistent with the child's academic level; include a functional analysis of textuals

List and describe the components of a comprehensive speech and language assessment

1. Test Manual

2. Administration and Scoring Procedures

3. Stimulus Items

4. Normative Sample

5. Statistical Analysis

6. Validity and Reliability

What is a Normative Sample

Sample of people smaller than normal population, but large enough to represent the population

What is Statistical Analysis

The manual should provide a range of raw scores. Statistical information should include conversion tables for many of the components mentioned earlier

What are reasons why documentation of the referral source is an important part of the Case History?

they will be a source for further information on the child and may also be required for payer documentation. Who the referral comes from is also indicative of information about the client.

What are some potential reliability problems associated with information gathered in the written case history?

Adoption, Literacy Difficulties, Lack of Information from caregiver, Language barriers, etc

List five guidelines a clinician should follow during clinical interviews

1. Be prepared

2. Take your time

3. Open ended questions

4. Record Interview

5. Avoid talking too much

What dB levels and frequencies are commonly used for a hearing screening?

500, 1000, 2000, 4000 at 25dB

What is the purpose of the orofacial examination?

To assess structural and functional adequacy

Looks at Strength, Range, Coordination, Consistency of movements

What is the purpose of diadochokinetic tasks?

Each sound targets a different muscle group:

Puh requires labial activity

Tuk requires tongue tip elevation at the alveolar ridge

Kuh requires posterior tongue elevation at the velum

What is stimulability testing? List two reasons why it is an important part of the assessment

If you have an error on a sound and model and do a quick teach of the placement and the child can quickly produce it in isolation, then you can say that the client is stimulable for the correct production d ready for intervention

Use the Instructions for Conducting the Orofacial Examination: Observations and Implications found in Chapter 2 to identify the implications of the following findings documented during an orofacial examination:

i. the lips pull to the right during a lip elongation (smiling) task

ii. an inability to sustain intraoral pressure with air leakage out the nose

iii. searching and groping movements during lip and tongue placement tasks

iv. the tongue deviates to the right upon protrusion

v. restricted tongue movement and a heart-shaped tongue when protruded vi. a bifid uvula

vii. a change of vocal quality during the alternate nose holding technique

i. Neurological Involvement

ii. velopharyngeal insufficiency

iii. sequencing or motor programming difficulties

iv. unilateral weakness

v. short lingual frenulum

vi. submucous cleft

vii. VPI

How would you explain to a parent the difference between scoring 50% on a test and scoring in the 50th percentile on a test?

A person who scores in the 30th percentile is interpreted to have performed lower than 70% of those in the normative sample; a significantly below average performance

A person who scores in the 95th percentile will have scored better than 94% of individuals on whom the test was standardized. This means that only 5% in the sample did better than that individual. This would be considered significantly above average.

Describe the difference between percentiles, standard scores, and stanines. For each of these scales, what would be considered "within normal limits"

Percentiles or Percentile Scores represent the percentage of individuals in the standardization sample scoring at or below a given raw score. The 50th percentile represents the mean score

Standard Scores represent the extent to which a child's scores deviate from the mean.

z-score standard deviation is 1

t-score mean is 50 and standard deviation is 10

Stanines is based on a nine-unit scale with a mean of 5 (representing the average performance) and an SD that approximates 2.

The mean is 5

What is an equivalent score? What is a serious limitation of using age or grade equivalents to describe a child's test performance?

Age Equivalent or Grade Equivalent

They are not standardized and do not take into account the variations in performance

Why do many language tests require the use of basal and ceiling levels?

To save administration time

Define content validity. What three criteria are used to establish content validity?

When an expert examines the test items and concludes that the items assess the purported skill.

(a) a justification of the methods usedto choose the test content

(b) expert evaluation of the test content

(c) an item analysis thatshows adequate opportunities for skills to be produced, both in the number of opportunities andthe context in which these opportunities occur.

Define the following types of reliability: interobserver, intraobserver, and alternate-form.

Interobserver

Consistency of test scores recorded by two or more examiners administering the same test to the same individuals

Alternate/Parallel Form

The consistency of measures when two forms of the same test are administered to the same persons

Intraobserver

Consistency of scores the same individuals obtain when the same examiner re-administers the test or repeats a naturalistic observation

Describe at least five criteria that can be helpful in selecting a test that is appropriate for the child being assessed.

1. Detailed test manual

2. based on large diverse normative samples

3. samples skills adequately

4. strong validity and reliability

5. Has appropriate stimulus items

Basal and Ceiling Levels

Basal Scores- Defined by the examiners manual. The basal score is the entry level or initial score. This is usually a certain number of correct responses

Ceiling Score- ALso defined by the examiner's manual. The ceiling score is the test terminating score. This is usually a certain number of incorrect responses.

Both of these help manage testing time and prevent testing fatigue