The document discusses various methods for assessing students' language and communication skills, including formal standardized tests that evaluate specific skills as well as informal techniques like language samples, classroom observations, and curriculum-based and ecological assessments that evaluate skills in real-world contexts. The goal of assessment is to identify language disorders, evaluate a student's strengths and weaknesses, guide intervention planning, and measure functional outcomes. A comprehensive assessment incorporates both formal and informal methods to fully understand a student's language abilities.

1. Teaching Students with Language
and Communication Disabilities
By S. Jay Kuder
CHAPTER 13

2. Assessing Language and
Communication
By the end of this chapter students should be able to:
• 1. List the purposes of language assessment.
• 2. Understand what should be included in a comprehensive
assessment of language and
• how to make assessment decisions.
• 3. List some formal tests for assessing language skills.
• 4. Describe some informal techniques for language
assessment.
• 5. Explain how to gather and analyze a language sample.
• 6. Describe some informal techniques for assessing specific
language skills.
• 7. Understand classroom-based techniques for language
assessment, including response-to-intervention.

3. Role as a Special Educator
• Many times you will be the first line of
contact for general classroom teachers
and parents who have concerns about
their children.
– Be familiar with ways to assess the language
skills of students at your school… SLPs will
be the “official” guardians of the speech
domain… but you can and should be a part of
the process.

4. Purposes of Language Assessment
• 1. Identification
• 2. Evaluation
• 3. Intervention
• 4. Functional Outcomes

5. Identifying Children with
Language Disorders
• Two-Step Process
– 1. Screening
• Problems with screeners?
– Overidentify/Underidentify
– 2. Determining Nature of the Disability
• Complete language evaluation
• Team established to review and create an
action plan for the student based on results
gathered from several SOURCES

6. Assessment for Intervention
• This is a task often forgotten because of the time
involved…
• How can you truly provide appropriate
interventions if you do not know HOW a child
learns?
• How can you prove an intervention is working if
you cannot see a GENERALIZATION of results?
• VIDEO: A Day in the Life of SLP’s

7. Core of Language Assessment
• 1. Phonology
• 2. Morphology
• 3. Syntax
• 4. Semantics
• 5. Pragmatics

8. Phonology
• Looking for the production of speech
SOUNDS
– 1. Intelligibility
– 2. Accuracy of Sound Production
– Examples of Phonological Processing:
• A. Detection of rhyme
• B. Division of words into sounds
• C. Detection of Beginning and Ending Sounds

9. Morphology
• Important to determine what word endings
and prefixes the child is using
– Can the child use the morpheme (part of a
word) correctly when is it a nonsense word?
– Example: This is a wug. Now there are
two of them. There are two
_____________.

10. Syntax 1
• 1. Use of phrase-structure rules:
– A. Noun
– B. Verb
– C. Adjective
– D. Rules for word order
– E. Simple vs. Compound sentences

11. Syntax 2
• Use of transformational rules:
– A. Understanding and use of questions
– B. Imperative sentences
– C. Passive voice

12. Semantics
• Understanding the meaning of words…
VOCABULARY
• Number of words
• Types of words
• Speed of processing
• Figures of speech
• Proverbs and Humor

13. Pragmatics 1
• Various types of speech acts:
– 1. Requesting
– 2. Protesting
– 3. Greeting
– 4. Answering
– VIDEO: Picnic Time!

14. Pragmatics 2
• Conversational Rules:
– 1. Turn-taking
– 2. Conversational Repairs
– 3. Topic Setting and Maintenance
– 4. Awareness of the NEED to vary one’s
language depending on the audience
– VIDEO: Turn-taking with Scrabble

15. Keep in mind when using
formal assessments…
• Reliability vs. Validity
• Reliability is the CONSISTENCY of how
the assessment measures the target skill.
• Validity is the EXTENT to which the
assessment measures what it says it
measures.

16. Formal Assessments
• Standardized Tests – set of standard
directions and format
• Norm Referenced – Individual is
compared to a comparison population
• Comprehensive – broad range of
language skills
• Tests of specific language skills

17. Problems with Formal
Assessments
• 1. Do not accurately reflect a child’s
spontaneous language abilities
• 2. Do not easily translate into therapeutic
goals.
• Do not adequately assess students from
diverse social and cultural backgrounds.

18. Sites to find out
HOW a student learns
• Two quick and easy ones!!
• Quick School-Age Screener
• Middle School Screener

19. Group Task: Break it down, share your
knowledge and then compare…
Curriculum-Based Assessments
(pgs. 289-290)
Ecological Assessments
(pgs. 290-292)
5. Read the information in the book – taking notes and
discussing any questions you may have with your team
members.
6. Create a graphic organizer to share with a member from
the other team… you will need your own copy.
7. Pair up with a person from the other team and share
your understanding of each assessment.
8. Complete a group Venn Diagram illustrating your new
understanding of CBA and Ecological Assessments.