Relationships Among Conversational Language Samples and Norm-Referenced Test Scores

Abstract

Research demonstrates that many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) do not routinely include language sample analysis (LSA) in their clinical practice because LSA has limited recognition as a valid assessment measure. Limited research suggests that some LSA values obtained from narrative samples correlate with the results of standardized language tests. This research examined the relationship among values obtained from conversational language samples and the results of standardized testing. Methods: This study investigated whether LSA values obtained from conversational language samples shared a relationship with the results of standardized language testing. A total of 16 children ages 43-90 months (M = 61.5 months) completed three subtests of a standardized language test and a 15-minute conversational language sample. Fifty-utterance language samples were analyzed for four LSA values including mean length of utterance (MLUS), total number of words (TNW), clauses per sentence (CPS) and words per sentence (WPS). Results: Results revealed that three of the four LSA values (MLUS, TNW, and WPS) demonstrated statistically significant (ps < .006) strong correlations (rs > .65) with the results of norm-referenced language testing. The partial correlations and the zero-order correlations were significant, suggesting age had little influence in controlling for the relationships. Conclusions: Conversational language samples complement norm-referenced tests well. Results support further exploration of the relationships among LSA measures obtained from conversational samples and the results of standardized language testing.

Conversational Language in 3-Year-Old Children Born Very Preterm and at Term

“…Another interesting finding of this study was that correlations between a standardized assessment tool (the PLS-5) and LSA were moderate at best. While some studies have found similarly weak correlations-including insignificant correlations-between LSA and standardized assessment tools (Ebert & Scott, 2014), others have found stronger relationships (Owens & Pavelko, 2017), at least for some measures. However, our results were more congruent than those of previous studies that contrasted standardized assessment with LSA in the preterm population (Crosbie et al, 2011;Imgrund et al, 2019;Mahurin-Smith et al, 2014).…”

“…The relationship between classifications was determined by identifying participants who were 1.5 SDs below the mean PLS-5 Total Language Score, MLUm, and TNW of the term-born children included in our study. MLUm and TNW were selected to represent morphosyntactic and lexical ability because they have been used in previous studies as primary outcomes of LSA (Owens & Pavelko, 2017).…”

“…Naturally, given the lack of studies investigating language using LSA approaches in the preterm group, there are even fewer studies exploring commonalities or differences between language assessment methods and reported outcomes in the preterm population. In nonpreterm populations, studies have observed congruence between LSA metrics such as MLU and the outcomes of standardized tools (Owens & Pavelko, 2017). However, those that have examined this in children born preterm have found a less consistent picture, with children born preterm typically performing worse on standardized assessment than LSA (Crosbie et al, 2011;Imgrund, Loeb, & Barlow, 2019;Mahurin-Smith et al, 2014).…”

Language Sample Analysis in Clinical Practice: Speech-Language Pathologists' Barriers, Facilitators, and Needs

“…studied differences in sample length in minutes and found that short samples of TD children yielded reliable measures of productivity, lexical diversity, and utterance length. As already mentioned in the introduction, several studies have tried to reduce time for LSA (Owens & Pavelko, 2017;Pavelko et al, 2020;Wiegers, 1996). However, most of these studies concerned (young) TD children.…”

Replicating the comparison between item-based tests and language samples in Portuguese kindergarteners’ language assessment

“…Stipdonk et al (2020) assessed very preterm (<32 weeks) children and full-term children and analyzed the relationships between six item-based subtests and MLU, but only those that focused on skills at the sentence level (three) reached a statistically significant relationship with MLU. Owens and Pavelko (2017) purposely chose three subtests that elicited responses in sentence format to analyze the relationships with MLU, which proved statistically significant. This pattern of results, in which statistically significant associations are more frequent at the sentence level than at the word level, makes sense because MLU involves the production of sentences.…”