LANGUAGE SAMPLING

A language sample is:**

• A collection of a child’s utterances

• Experts recommend that you get 100-200 utterances

When you collect a language sample…

Language samples (LSs)

When gathering a language sample, we want to:

We also want to:

Ideally…

Research shows that:

Use a variety of materials!**

• You can use toys, books, games

• You can also ask about topics the child is interested in

Youtube

• Language sample (3 minutes)

• By lilcook03

• What is the SLP doing right?

Interesting topics for children:

To analyze syntactic skills, evaluate the child’s use of:

Does the child use appropriately long and complex sentences?**

• Expressive Language Disorder - Sariah age 10

• Notice how short and simple her sentences are for her age

To analyze morphological skills…**

• Evoke the possessive morpheme by using activities and pictures and asking questions such as “Whose is this?”

• Use pictures/activities to assess use of present progressive –ing

To further analyze morphological skills:**

• Use pictures to assess a child’s production of regular and irregular plural nouns

To further analyze morphological skills…**

• Assess past-tense constructions by telling a story and asking the child to re-tell the story

To assess semantic skills…

In older students, indicators of language impairment include:

To assess pragmatic skills, look for…

MLU Norms** (PRAXIS!) • 18-24 mos. MLU = 1.5 to 2.0

• 2-2 ½ yrs. MLU = 2.0-2.5

• 2 ½ to 3 yrs. MLU = 2.5-3.0

• 3-4 yrs. MLU = 3.0-4.0

• 4-5 yrs. MLU = 4.5+

• 5-6 yrs. MLU= 8+ words, compound and complex sentences