February 13, 2016

Descriptive Assessment in the Real World

By Sarah

February 13, 2016

Recently, Lisa and I had the privilege of speaking about descriptive assessments to a graduate class at Arizona State University. We are both graduates of ASU and it was truly an honor to have the opportunity to speak to this future group of SLPs. I have shared in a previous post that I loved my education at ASU. I participated in a program that allowed me to receive my education while working in the field. The best part was knowing what I didn’t know and being able to attend classes to seek that information. There were times when I felt that some of what was being taught was unrealistic, but it set the bar high and encouraged me to reach it.

Language sample analysis - this was one of the many things we were taught where I saw the importance of it but not how to do it efficiently in the real world. In graduate school, we used the program SALT to analyze our samples and all I remember feeling is frustration and confusion. Transcribing a 50 utterance sample word for word is time consuming enough, and then trying to determine clauses and enter in conventions for morphemes, omissions, punctuation, and mazes takes it to a whole new level. I spent hours and hours trying to transcribe a language sample with this program. I am sure with enough practice it would come a little easier, but it is by no means a quick project. When we showed up to present at ASU, the professor had just finished explaining to the students how to do their SALT transcriptions. I saw a lot of panic and confusion on their faces. It is overwhelming, and typically when something is difficult and uncomfortable we avoid it. And that is what I fear happens with most SLPs…they skip this essential step in assessing a student because it is difficult and uncomfortable.

How can we make it easier and do we really need to do it?

I don’t know if we have all the answers for how to make it easier, but I do think we have found a way to simplify the process and still collect important data. And yes, we do need to do it. Descriptive data is probably the most important information you can gather about a student. It is not only the best indicator of their functional communication skills, but research also shows that a student’s narrative ability is a predictor of academic success. With a quality language sample, we are able to measure a student’s form, content, and use. This is valuable information for qualifying a student for services, but unlike standardized assessments, it is also an excellent way to plan treatment. Because of this, we have included a section to collect a language sample, narrative retell, or summary in all of our Present Level Assessments (PLAs). Rather than transcribing word for word, or completing MLU/type token ratio analyses, we have included these areas to consider as the student is participating in a conversation or narrative:

Did they sequence the information in a logical order with smooth transitions?
Did they provide sufficient detail rather than requiring the conversational partner to ask continual questions?
Is the sentence length appropriate?
Do they establish and maintain referents?
Are they providing semantically appropriate responses (response matches the question form)?
Are they exhibiting efficient word retrieval and using specific vocabulary?
Do they demonstrate typical pragmatics?
Any articulation, voice, or fluency concerns?
During a retell did they organize the story with a beginning, middle, and an end?
Did they include story grammar elements (character, setting, emotions, problem, actions, outcome)?
Did they include key vocabulary from the story?
Are they using complete sentences with age-appropriate grammar?

These sections of the PLAs are not necessarily checklists, but a guide to quickly assess language abilities in these authentic contexts. There are plenty of spaces to write in comments and examples. I personally prefer to type all of what they are saying in the comment box so that I can look it over and assess these areas after I finish, but Lisa prefers to assess while the student is speaking and provide samples in the comment box under each skill.

We know first hand the demands of a school-based SLP, and that completing a language sample is sometimes a luxury that we can’t afford. We hope we have created a method to simplify the process but still allow for gathering this critically important information. Give it a try and let us know what you think at info@slptoolkit.com.

-Sarah

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