Concordance between teacher/therapist opinion and formal language assessment scores in children with language impairment

Abstract

Abstracts As part of a wider study, 242 children attending language units attached to mainstream schools were assessed on a number of formal language assessments. In addition, each child's teacher was asked to state whether, for each of four areas of language difficulty, the participant exhibited this impairment. The four areas were: articulation, phonology, syntax/morphology and semantic/pragmatic impairment. This report compares test results between children thought by their teacher or therapist to show each impairment and those not thought clinically to show the difficulty. Investigations into suitable cut‐off scores for the tests used were also examined using level of agreement between the two modes of assessment as criteria. For articulation, phonology and syntax/morphology, teacher opinion was found to discriminate significantly on at least some formal tests. However, for children with semantic/pragmatic impairment, no tests used identified their problems. Furthermore, by use of 25th centile cut‐off scores, 66% agreement levels between teacher and test groupings were found in all but the group with semantic/pragmatic impairments. The importance and limitations of analysis of teacher‐test concordance is discussed as well as the current lack of suitable formal assessment material for semantic and pragmatic language impairment. Ce rapport s'inscrit dans une étude plus large. 242 enfants qui allaient à des unités correctives du langage au sein d'écoles assurant des cours normaux, ont fait l'objet d'un certain nombre d'évaluations formelles du langage. Parallèlement, l'on a demandé à l'enseignant de chaque enfant de préciser si l'enfant avait ou non un handicap pour chacun des domaines suivants de difficultés du langage: l'articulation, la phonologie, la syntaxe et morphologie, et la sémantique et pragmatique. Pour chacun de ces domaines le rapport compare les résultats des tests entre ceux que leur enseignant ou l'orthophoniste a jugé en état de handicap et ceux qui n'ont pas été jugés comme souffrant de handicap. L'on s'est servi aussi du niveau d'accord entre les deux méthodes d'évaluation comme critère pour déterminer des notes seuil pour les tests utilisés. Pour l'articulation, la phonologie et la syntaxe et morphologie, l'opinion de l'enseignant se distinguait significativement d'au moins certains tests formels. Cependent, dans le cas des enfants avec un handicap sémentique–pragmatique, aucun test utilisé n 'a identifié les problèmes. De plus, en utilisant des notes seuil au 25e percentile, l'on a trouvé 66% de niveaux d'accord entre les enseignants et les tests pour tous les groupes, sauf celui avec des handicaps sémantiques–pragmatiques. La discussion porte sur l'importance de l'analyse de l'accord entre les enseignants et les tests, et sur les limites de cette analyse, ainsi que sur le manque à l'heure actuelle d'outil d'évaluation adéquat en ce qui concerne les handicaps sémantiques et pragmatiques. Als Teil einer breiter angelegten Studie wurden 242 Kinder an sprachtherapeutischen Einheiten innerhalb ...

Educational transitions of 7‐year‐old children with SLI in language units: a longitudinal study

“…However, children who moved schools were more likely to be described as having 'expressive only' language problems (44/84, 52% versus 41/118, 35%; x 2 (2)=10·9; p=0·004). (Recall that those who moved were better on standardized articulation and expressive grammar tests -good concordance between test and teacher data is reported elsewhere, by Botting et al 1997).…”

The Relationship Between Standardized Measures of Language and Measures of Spontaneous Speech in Children With Autism

“…Other studies have also highlighted the usefulness of spontaneous speech measures for diagnosing children with SLI who come from Spanishspeaking families (Restropo, 1998) or African-American families (Craig & Washington, 2000). Botting, Conti-Ramsden, and Crutchley (1997) investigated the sensitivity of standardized psychometric tests to different types of language disorders in a sample of more than 240 children ages 6-8 years old. They found that although such tests were good at discriminating children with structural language impairments, none of the tests could identify children with semantic-pragmatic disorders.…”

Educational attainments of children with specific language impairment at year 6

“…The participants in the present study are a subgroup drawn from an extensive longitudina l study examining a variety of issues surrounding English children attending language units (Conti-Ramsden and Botting, 1999;Botting et al, 1997Botting et al, , 1998. The original study examined 242 children (186 boys, 56 girls) in school year 2 (mean age 7:0).…”