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IRT is a set of statistical methods that are increasingly used for developing instruments in speech-language pathology. While IRT is not new, its application in speech-language pathology to date has been relatively limited in scope. Several new IRT-based instruments are currently emerging. IRT differs from traditional methods for test development, typically referred to as classical test theory (CTT), in several theoretical and practical ways. Administration, scoring, and interpretation of IRT instruments are different from methods used for most traditional CTT instruments. SLPs will need to understand the basic concepts of IRT instruments to use these tools in their clinical and research work. This article provides an introduction to IRT concepts drawing on examples from speech-language pathology.

Conceptualizing domains of functional cognition is the first step in developing a computer adaptive measure of functional cognition for stroke. Additional steps include developing, refining, and field-testing items, psychometric analysis, and computer adaptive test programming.

This study provides preliminary evidence of the CES's construct validity. Clinicians and researchers who assess and treat individuals with PD may consider adding an additional assessment to the traditional clinical measures (i.e., speech intelligibility) by obtaining a measure of communicative effectiveness.

Vocal expression reflects an integral component of communication that varies considerably within individuals across contexts and is disrupted in a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders. There is reason to suspect that variability in vocal expression reflects, in part, the availability of “on-line” resources (e.g., working memory, attention). Thus, understanding vocal expression is a potentially important biometric index of information processing, not only across but within individuals over time. A first step in this line of research involves establishing a link between vocal expression and information processing systems in healthy adults. The present study employed a dual attention experimental task where participants provided natural speech while simultaneously engaged in a baseline, medium or high nonverbal processing-load task. Objective, automated, computerized analysis was employed to measure vocal expression in 226 adults. Increased processing load resulted in longer pauses, fewer utterances, greater silence overall and less variability in frequency and intensity levels. These results provide compelling evidence of a link between information processing resources and vocal expression, and provide important information for the development of an automated, inexpensive and uninvasive biometric measure of information processing.

The results provide support for the use of the BRIEF-A as a supplemental assessment of executive function in TBI populations. However, further validation is needed with other measures of executive function. Recommendations include use of the index scores over the Global Executive Composite score and use of the difficulty hierarchy for setting therapy goals.

The Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) (Kertesz, 1982) is used to classify aphasia by classical type, measure overall severity, and measure change over time. Despite its near-ubiquitousness, it has significant psychometric shortcomings. The purpose of this investigation was to improve the psychometric properties of the WAB, specifically its reliability and validity for measuring aphasia severity and change over time.

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