Profiling morpho-syntactic and discourse development - Summary

Sat Jan 20 13:57:04 UTC 2007

Dear Madalena,

Apologies for not responding sooner, but now your summary reminds me 
that I have some relevant experience, too.

First, there is also a Harcourt website for the DELV, as well as the 
one at UMass:

	harcourtassessment.ca/HAIWEB/ 
Cultures/en-us/dotCom/DELVInfo.Net+Home.htm

	or you can use the same website as for the CELF,
> 	http://harcourtassessment.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/default

	and click "view all products" and then you'll find it under "D" 	(for 
diagnostic).  (I don't understand why they have the Criterion 
Referenced version listed first.  The "real" 	DELV is the 
Norm-Referenced and the Screening Test.)

Having done a large project on frog stories several years ago using my 
own home-made metric, (stories on CHILDES under "Miami frogs," write-up 
in Oller & Eilers, 2002), I can REALLY appreciate the shorter, equally 
accurate system (imho) that DELV collaborator Peter de Villiers (with 
the DELV authors, Seymour, Roeper & J. de Villiers) built in to the 
DELV Pragmatics Short Narrative section.

I also did an analysis of a large set of speech samples more recently 
and found that I could have them transcribed into Excel, which suited 
the way our lab worked very well, and then without *too* much effort, I 
could prepare them for SALT. From SALT, they can go into CHAT (with a 
SALT IN command) or into Computerized Profiling, (and of course SALT 
:).  CP is a free program developed by Steve Long downloadable at

http://www.computerizedprofiling.org/

It has a number of built-in assessments, *including the LARSP* so I 
recently became re-acquainted with the LARSP.

I didn't use all the components of CP, but was satisfied with 
everything but the IPSyn (Inventory of Productive Syntax by Hollis 
Scarborough), which I ended up doing by hand.  Perhaps CLAN now has an 
IPSyn program.  I was communicating with Brian M. about it at the time, 
and he was developing something, but I haven't needed it since then, so 
I haven't followed up.

Best,

Barbara Pearson

On Jan 20, 2007, at 2:43 AM, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira wrote:

>
> Dear all,
>  
> Below is a summary of the responses to my query, with a very sincere 
> *Thank You* to Isabelle Barrière, Ruth Berman, Paul Fletcher, Judith 
> Johnston and Tom Roeper.
>  
>  
> These are some of the instruments in current use:
>  
> CELF (Psychological Corporation).
> For English- and Spanish-speaking children, used by SLPs.
> Information available from
> http://harcourtassessment.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/default
>  
> Creative Curriculum Development.
> For English and Spanish. Includes a teachers' observation instrument, 
> and discourse assessment.
>  
> DELV (Psychological Corporation).
> Developed for AAE by Harry Seymour, Jill deVilliers, and Tom Roeper.
> Information available from http://www.umass.edu/aae/
>  
> ERRNI (Dorothy Bishop -- Psychological Corporation).
> Normed instrument, accounts for discourse development.
>  
> NRS report.
> Tests vocabulary (subtest of Peabody), a few syntactic structures and 
> mathematical abilities in English and Spanish. Used for bilinguals 
> too, though not normed on bilinguals. Does not test discourse 
> abilities.
>  
> Preschool Language Skills.
> For English- and Spanish-speaking children, used by SLPs.
>  
> Rice-Wexler Test of Early Grammatical Impairment.(Psychological 
> Corporation).
> For morphosyntax, particularly verb morphology.
>  
> SALT.
> Description and illustration at www.languageanalysislab.com
> User-friendly, provides normative data on a wide range of variables, 
> enabling profiling of discourse, length, processing, lexical, 
> morphological and syntactic variables. Own coding required for 
> in-depth analysis, namely, of syntax.
> Judith Johnston and Funda Acarlar have completed a version of this 
> programme for Turkish speaking children, forthcoming as Acarlar, F. & 
> Johnston, J. (2006) Computer-based analysis of Turkish child 
> language:  Clinical and research applications, Journal of Multilingual 
> Communication Disorders, 4, 78-94.
>  
> TROG-2 (Dorothy Bishop -- Psychological Corporation).
> Normed for comprehension of grammar.
>  
>  
> Other comments:
>  
> Isabelle Barrière suggested references about the lack of standardised 
> assessment tools for discourse and about a coding system for the Frog 
> Story to enable its application across languages, cultures and 
> age-groups.
> She is currently working on a summary of different assessment 
> instruments aimed at Special Education.
>  
> Ruth Berman suggested looking at the "Nun studies", viz. Tracy Mitzner 
> and Susan Kemper's, and kindly sent me a paper forthcoming in 
> _Discourse Processes_: Berman &  
> Nir-Sagiv 'Comparing Narrative and Expository Text Construction Across 
> Adolescence:
> A Developmental Paradox'.
>  
> Judith Johnston's new book addresses assessment instruments in 
> clinical practice, including the use of SALT. Reference (available 
> through Amazon):
> Johnston, J. (2006)  Thinking about child language: Research to 
> practice. Thinking Publications.
>  
> CDI.
> Though not addressed in my query, two pointers were certainly relevant:
> Isabelle Barrière is directing research on templates to code 
> cross-linguistic CDI-gathered data to account for grammatical 
> development and form-meaning mapping.
> Paul Fletcher (with Twila Tardif et al.) normed CDI for Mandarin in 
> Beijing. Publication is expected this year.
>  
>  
> About LARSP:
> I gathered that it may still be used in SLP courses in a few 
> English-speaking European countries, in South Africa and Australasia, 
> but not in America (USA, Canada).
>  
>
>
> Madalena
> ======================================
> Madalena Cruz-Ferreira
> Dept. English Language and Literature
> National University of Singapore
> ellmcf at nus.edu.sg
> http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/ellmcf/
> ======================================
*****************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D
Research Associate, Project Manager
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

Tel: 413.545.5023

bpearson at research.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/