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Special Forum on Phonology
Time constraints are a significant factor for clinic-based and school-based speech-language pathologists. Yet, with a planning process that incorporates parent information and accounts for child temperament, a comprehensive speech and language assessment can be completed within a 90-minute time frame. A parent questionnaire is completed prior to the assessment date, focusing on developmental history, including information about family history of learning difficulties and episodes of otitis media. Standardized and nonstandardized procedures are included in the assessment process in order to obtain clinically relevant information and provide parents and public service agencies with necessary qualifying scores. The Bankson-- Bernthal Test of Phonology (BBTOP; Bankson & Bernthal, 1991) is the choice of instruments for
standardized articulation/phonology testing, whereas the Preschool Language Scale-3 (PLS3; Zimmerman, Steiner, & Pond, 1992) and a spontaneous language sample are recommended as language measures. A spontaneous sample also provides opportunity for clinical judgment regarding speech intelligibility, pragmatic skills, voice, and fluency. A recommendation session concludes the evaluation with a discussion of the child's performance on speech and language measures, overall impressions, and recommendations. This discussion includes strengths and weaknesses, with focus on answering parents' questions and addressing their concerns.
Key Words: assessment, articulation, standardized tests, language
The assessment of young children between three and five years of age can be stressful for both the child and caregivers. Young children can be reluctant to interact with examiners and/or parents in unfamiliar environments and caregivers can be anxious about a child's overall performance, regardless of the acknowledgement of communication difficulties. In order to decrease both familial and child stress, to minimize additional testing, and to obtain a representative sample of a child's skills, both standardized and nonstandardized procedures should be implemented. These procedures should encompass a multidimensional approach to obtain information regarding all factors that may be impeding a child's abilities to learn.
As much as we believe nonstandardized tasks provide us with more useful information, we recognize that standardized instruments are important for the purpose of identifying if a problem exists, because they allow comparison to a normative sample. Scores provided by standardized tests are especially useful for parents and professionals. The usefulness of these tests extends to: (1) helping parents understand how their child is...