Assessment of School-Age and Adolescent Language 3/12/25

Assessment of School-Age and Adolescent Language Disorders

how a school age language system is impacted by their classroom; how being in school can impact a kids language system

Overview of Age Groups and Referrals

• Age Groups:

  • Toddler/Preschool: 18/24 months - 5 years

  • School-Age: 5 - 12 years

  • Adolescent: 12+ years

• Referral Sources:

  • Pediatrician, parent, teacher

History and Assessment- slide 2

• History Considerations:

  • Toddler/Preschool: Birth, developmental, pre-academic history

  • School-Age: Birth?, developmental?, academic history

  • Adolescent: Primarily academic history

• Assessment Team:

  • Typically includes SLP, psychologist, educational diagnostician, OT, PT, social worker, behavior specialists, among others, depending on deficits noted.

  • you are a member of an assessment team all for this one child

• Settings:

  • Clinic and school systems, with varying age group focus.

• Eligibility Criteria:

  • Varies by setting, with standard deviations (SD) referenced such as Clinic -1 SD and School - Bulletin 1508.

  • no set of one set of eligibility criteria, we use our own judgement primarily to see if they are eligible

Common Symptoms of Language Disorders- slide 3

table in book page 139

• Semantics:

  • Word finding/retrieval difficulties

  • Small vocabulary and difficulty defining words

  • Inappropriate word usage and less comprehension of complex vocabulary

• Syntax/Morphology:

  • Use of grammatically incorrect or overly simplistic sentences

  • Utilization of stereotyped phrases

  • Prolonged pauses during sentence formation

• Pragmatics:

  • Challenges in conversational control, such as introducing and maintaining topics

  • Difficulty shifting conversational styles in different contexts

  • Trouble making inferences and explaining sequences.

• Not uncommon for them to pass a formal language test but still have some concerns

• did the test assess the things you have the most concerns about, do you need to administer another test to catch the problem you believe they have

• video= issues with retrieval and remembering what the story was about, lots of pauses with retrieval, poor retelling, vague, poor sequencing

High-Risk Groups for Language Disorders- slide 5

increased likelihood of being diagnosed with a language impairment

• students with a history of language impairment in preschool

• Students with learning and/or reading disorders

• Students facing behavioral, emotional, and/or social difficulties; ADHD, depression, anxiety

• Academically at-risk students- consistently earning D’s, not technically failing and not getting services so they are not getting anyones attention or are on their radar

Trends in Teacher Exposure to Language Skills-6

is kindergarten the new first grade

• Comparison of kindergarten teachers' weekly exposure to specific math and language skills from 1998 to 2010.

• Notable increase in the number of teachers reporting exposure to language skills from 76% to 94%.

• Reflects evolving standards and expectations in early education.

• things that were once expected from a first grader are now being expected from kindergarteners

• more pressure and focus on academics in Kindergarten

• this is called an academic pushdown= expecting more and more from younger and younger kids

• also holds true for older kids= has a direct effect on their language skills

• kids need that pre exposure to academics before kidnergarten and first grade or else they are walking into failure

Language Ability, Teacher Language, and Curriculum Demands- slide 7

• Figure 5-2: Depicts the interplay between language ability, teacher language, and curricular demands as grade level increases.

• Highlights the critical need for alignment between student capabilities and curriculum rigor to avoid surpassing students' language abilities.

• where these lines intersect is where what is being expected surpasses what they are able to do; this point is getting earlier and earlier

• kids need to understand like temporal terms, verbal instructions (auditory memory), sequencing; progressively more abstract things as school gets harder by the grade

Screening and Evaluation

• Purpose of Screening: To determine the need for a more in-depth language evaluation.

• Screening methods can include facility-developed techniques or standardized tests such as CELF-5.

• Importance of teacher insights following screener outcomes, acknowledging their role in assessing ongoing concerns.

• DIBELS testing

Language Assessments and Tools

• Importance of utilizing both standardized and non-standardized tests to document existence of language disorders.

• Commonly used language tests include: CASL-2, PPVT-5, TACL-3, TAPS-3, TOLD-P:5, TOLD-I:5, CELF-5, OWLS-2, and language sampling methods to assess language usage and performance levels.

• language sampling allows us to look at context and form of their language

Language and Academic Performance

• Diagnosticians must understand the child's learning environment to gauge the impact of language impairment.

• Classroom expectations for language become increasingly complex, thus making it more challenging for language-impaired children to meet these demands.

Language and Literacy-11

• Literacy skills (reading, writing, spelling) are intrinsically linked to oral language abilities.

• lots of aspects of literacy are based on the child’s language system

• SLPs play a crucial role in literacy, integrating support into classroom experiences and facilitating individualized/small-group activities.

Kindergarten Benchmark Goals and Intervention

• DIBELS Composite Score Goals:

  • Defined levels for benchmark performance at various times through the school year, with specific intervention categories for those scoring below benchmarks.

  • FSF= first sound fluency

  • PSF= phoneme segmentation fluency

  • to meet benchmark they had to get sound right 10 times= unrealistic especially for our kids with language disorders

Conversational Pragmatics Assessment

• Assessment of conversational skills often conducted through observational methods, involving ratings on:

  • Turn-taking, specificity, topic maintenance, narrative skills, cohesion, nonverbal communication and social-emotional interactions.

  • does what they are syaing go along with the conversation that is taking place

  • can they repair and revise what was said if it is not understood

  • social interaction with peers, interacting with peers

  • use of narratives becomes more important as children age, bc they take on more subtle characteristics

  • children with LD might use fewer words in narratives

Curriculum-Based Assessment

• Purpose: Evaluate the student's abilities from varied perspectives.

• Includes referral forms, language samples, and teacher and student interviews.

• teacher will ask SLP to screen this kid based on their observations, there is a form to indicate what areas the child seems to have the most difficulty in

• I do or not not think their educational performance is adversely affecting them

• everything in the school system is viewed through the lens of educational performance

• it is important to examine these students from a variety of different perspectives

• collect the referral, langiuage sample, testing info, work samples from teacher, how he is doing on tests, writing samples, teacher interview, student interview, (do you like school, things they dont like are things they are not good at, could point in same direction as what teacher says) observations from class like you as SLP go observe the class to see that natural environment of teacher and student and their interactions and how student acts in class and how he manages himself and his materials

Next Steps Post-Evaluation

• Evaluation results inform strengths, needs, eligibility for services, and development of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

• IEP should be a reflection of all the data you have collected and this drives what type of services and accomodations are needed

• speech DOES fall under special education

• IEPs are updated at least once a year to reflect any changes

Case Studies Overview-17

summarize child, what areas of language do you think are the most important to look at, any additional concerns

1. Adam (7, 1st Grade)

• Concerns: Difficulty staying on task, using vague language, poor grades in reading and language.

• Actions: Screening indicated language issues, received response to intervention (RtI) with minimal progress.

2. Henry (11, 5th Grade)

• Concerns: Decline in performance, difficulty with ascertaining inferences.

• Noted strengths: Excellent vocabulary, concrete tasks.

3. Steven (8, 2nd Grade)

• Concerns: Poor performance across subjects, acting out in class, challenges in language comprehension.

• life obstacles have a huge impact!!!

4. Gracie (13, 7th Grade)-

• Concerns: Difficulty focusing, following written instructions, has a history of ADHD and noted increase in forgetfulness.

• concerns with ADHD, needs to be back on meds

• discuss ADHD medicine due to her academic requirements advancing in complexity and her attention span concerns

• concerns about her auditory comprehension but does better with written cues and instructions

• difficulty listening to oral structure classroom rules

• concerns with failing the vision screener

• some other areas to look at - if her receptive is behind her expressive may be behind but we need more info on her expressive. does not participate in classroom discussion. testing her expressive language would help her understanding

• look at semantics and syntax to see if she is lacking in understanding word meanings and word complexity in structured sentences

• concerns about her attending skills in relation to oral comprehension

• demands above ability, use global test like castle, informal observations of pragmatics bc of ADHD

• child psychiatrists can manage ADHD meds

End of Notes