Language Test

Developmental Language Disorder

• Children have significant difficulties understanding/using language when comparing to same age peers

• Occurs without primary diagnosis that could explain why

• Persists BEYOND preschool years

Inclusionary Criteria

• Specific conditions that must be PRESENT (met) for a child to be considered eligible for a DLD evaluation

• Only called DLD if symptoms occur beyond 2-3 age

Exclusionary Criteria

• Specific conditions that must be ABSENT in a child in order to be properly diagnosed with DLD

• Sensorineural hearing loss

• Intellectual disability (nonverbal IQ)

• Neurological or developmental disorders that could cause language delays

Genetic factors DLD

• Most likely to have family members with language difficulties

• Specific gene locus linked to speech and language impairments

Environmental factors DLD

• An environment/lack of language stimulation CANNOT cause DLD

• A child’s environment influences language development

• High language input helps children language grow

Process Difficulties DLD

• Slower processing

  • Need more time to process information

  • Reduced speech in naming pictures/recognizing words

  • Lower performance on nonword repetition tasks (repeating nonsense words)

• Attention/ADHD

  • Impulsivity, High activity levels, Distractibility

  • Harder for children to understand language and use it appropriately in social contexts

Literacy Challenge

• DLD affects literacy development

• Skills like phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, pragmatics

• All rely metalinguistic awareness

Metalinguistic

• Metaphonoligcal: Sound awareness

• Metasyntactic: Grammar

• Metalexical/Metasemantic: Word meaning

• Metapragmatic: Language use

• Metatextual: Text structure

Print milestones

• Print referencing

  • Evidence based strategy to enhance emergent literacy skills of young children

• Print interest

  • Child finds print to be stimuli (interest in print, specific words/letters)

• Print Function

  • Child understands that print carries meaning.

  • Child might not realize that print provides additional details

• Print Conventions

  • Child understands that print has its own organization scheme

• Print Forms

  • Child understands words/letters/print can be different and distinct names and can be organized

• Print Part to Part Relationships

  • Child can recognize how letters make up words, and words can be linked to create larger propositions

  • Print units can be combined into other print

Scaffolding Strategies

• Scaffolding questions

• Modeling

  • Demonstrating target sound, word, sentence and child watches and copies it

• Expansions and Recasts

  • Take childs incomplete/incorrect utterance and expands it into a complete/well-formed model without shame

• Close procedure

  • Start a sentence/phrase and stops to let child fill in the blank

• Binary Choices

  • Narrows down open-ended question with two options

Autism & 3 levels

• Challenges with social communication and social interaction

• Restricted or repetitive behaviors, interests, or activities (RRBS)

• Level 1: Requiring support

• Level 2: Requiring substantial support

• Level 3: Requiring very substantial support

Core principles for Neurodiversity Affirming Approach

• Should address meaningful needs without requiring people to suppress autistic characteristics to appear more neurotypical

• Respect individual differences

• Prioritize functional communication

• Promote autonomy

• Modify environments

• Collaborate on goals

• Support meaningful development

Intellectual Disability

• Affects how a person learns, reasons, solves problems, and manages everyday life skills

• Begins during developmental period

Ecological Model

• Microsystem: Family, caregivers, daily supports

• Mesosystem: School, neighborhood, Community, Workplace

• Macrosystem: Society’s larger culture values, practices related to disability

• Chronosystem: How these systems interact and change over time

• Influence a person’s support and quality of life. May vary in intensity across activities and life span

Five dimensions influencing individual

• Dimension I: Intellectual ability

• Dimension II: Adaptive behavior

• Dimension III: Participation

• Dimension IV: Mental and physical health

• Dimension V: Context

Limitations of norm-referenced assessment for ID

• Cannot properly track longitudinal growth

• Cultural and Environmental Bias

• Decontextualized Items: Testing items are usually rigid and stripped of functional, real-world context

• Inability to guide specific instruction: do not easily translate into actionable, step-by-step instructional or intervention goals

Utility of the ARC for assessment purposes with individual with ID

• Used to identify student strengths and limitation