Assessment of Communication
Does comprehension differentiate between late talker and language impaired?
YES!
12-18 months
-understanding words without nonlinguistic cues
-name of a family member; label for game, kiss or drink
-nouns: place a collection of objects before child that the parent indicated they may know and ask them to point to or hand you one
Formal Measures
CSBS
Why is comprehension important?
understanding words in second year of life is predictive of both expressive and receptive language development as much as 2.5 years later
18-24 months
-understanding two-term instructions
-expressing 2 semantic relation combinations: action-object, action-location
-present unusual combinations: use words child succeed on in previous assessment: hug a shoe
-step back if child fails to respond correctly
Informal
-observe child playing w/ interesting toys and familiar adult: evidence of spontaneous use
-if intentional behaviors are not observe elicit through temptations
-if not observed: still in perlocutionary stage: check for foundational skills such as reciprocity and shared attention
Parent Report Assessment:
MCDI- less reliable than for expressive language use comprehension strategies, some parents will say they "understand everything"
24-36 months
-understanding three-term instructions
-agent-action-object, agent-action-location
-still rely on probable event strategy i.e mommy feed the baby, baby feeds mommy
-test of basic 2-3 year comprehension skills using a series of probably agent action object sentences
How do we evaluate communicative intentions?
in terms of a range of communicative functions expressed, frequency of communication, communicative means
Formal Measures:
if successful at 24-36 month level: use PPVT, ROWVT, TOPV, CELF-P
past 36 months
use formal testing