Guest guest Posted December 29, 2002 Report Share Posted December 29, 2002 I agree with Tracie's comments. In addition, I think it's important to keep in mind the purpose of norm-referenced tests like the PLS, which is (as part of a comprehensive test battery) to determine (or rule out) the presence of a language disorder, not to measure progress over relatively short periods of time. Norm-referenced tests are often insensitive to important gains that a child may make within a given age level due to the relatively small number of items used to sample performance at that level. A more meaningful way to assess progress is to use criterion-referenced measures (such as gains made on the ABLLS) specific to the goals targeted in the intervention program. Mareile e-mail: MareileKoenig@... [ ] Measuring Progress It is impossible to tell or predict the amount or frequency with which you would see progress within expressive and receptive language skills even with intensive intervention. Acquisition of language skills are related to cognitive abilities and no test can accurately predict verbal intelligence potential in a pre-school child. There may be life long learning deficits within the language areas that no amount of therapy will remediate but then again the early test results may be reflecting difficulties with consistent responding, joint attention, or test-taking ability/familiarity and not really measuring true language deficits at all. In my experience I have seen a few (very few) children go from scores at the 1st percentile to scores within the average range within language in a couple of years. Some of those children were later re-diagnosed as Language Disordered rather than as having ASD. Many more times I have seen children make very substantial gains in some areas but experience long term difficulties with other skills. Also, progression isn't usually linear in nature as language skills build on each other but some skills may be easier to acquire than others. Typically in a child with an ASD diagnosis the pattern is rather scattered (peaks of highs and lows within language abilities) rather than a more even profile. Tracie Lindblad Speech-Language Pathologist ABA Clinical Supervisor List moderators: Jenn - ABAqueen1@... Steph - Stephhulshof@... Post message: Subscribe: -subscribe Unsubscribe: -unsubscribe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 29, 2002 Report Share Posted December 29, 2002 My son's Dx went from dyspraxia /communication spectrum disorder ( depending on which Dr you believed) to language disordered. He was unintelligible and all over the place; now he is a basically NT Honor Roll student with pragmatic difficulties. It does come- but as Tracie said, it is difficult and hard to measure some areas of growth. He will probably continue with his SLP for a few more years at least. Cj [ ] Measuring Progress It is impossible to tell or predict the amount or frequency with which you would see progress within expressive and receptive language skills even with intensive intervention. Acquisition of language skills are related to cognitive abilities and no test can accurately predict verbal intelligence potential in a pre-school child. There may be life long learning deficits within the language areas that no amount of therapy will remediate but then again the early test results may be reflecting difficulties with consistent responding, joint attention, or test-taking ability/familiarity and not really measuring true language deficits at all. In my experience I have seen a few (very few) children go from scores at the 1st percentile to scores within the average range within language in a couple of years. Some of those children were later re-diagnosed as Language Disordered rather than as having ASD. Many more times I have seen children make very substantial gains in some areas but experience long term difficulties with other skills. Also, progression isn't usually linear in nature as language skills build on each other but some skills may be easier to acquire than others. Typically in a child with an ASD diagnosis the pattern is rather scattered (peaks of highs and lows within language abilities) rather than a more even profile. Tracie Lindblad Speech-Language Pathologist ABA Clinical Supervisor List moderators: Jenn - ABAqueen1@... Steph - Stephhulshof@... Post message: Subscribe: -subscribe Unsubscribe: -unsubscribe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 30, 2002 Report Share Posted December 30, 2002 Reg Reynolds oak, where I work, has pre-post data on kids in an ABA program that shows 12 months progress in language in 12 months of treatment, and about 5 months progress in social and self-help skills for the same time period. > From: " babowers2000 <bbowers@...> " <bbowers@...> > Subject: Measuring Progress > > *****With the disclaimer that all children are different and have > different potentials********* > > If a child was in the 1st percentile in expressive and receptive > language based on the Preschool Language (PLS-3) and then received a > quality intensive program, how fast would the progress show in test > results? Could you expect or realisticly hope for linear > improvement until the child reached the norm. > > I know it is not a fair question but it is one primarily out of > curiosity and hope.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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