A Comparison of Language Samples Elicited at Home and in the Clinic

Abstract

One of the most common methods of obtaining diagnostic information about a child's language production is to collect and analyze a spontaneous language sample. Usually, this sample is collected in a clinical setting by a speech-language pathologist. Because children's language production seems very sensitive to situational variables, there is some question about the representativeness of language samples obtained in clinical settings. This study compared language samples obtained in the home by the mothers with those obtained in the clinic by speech-language pathologists. Subjects were three- to five-year-old children who had been referred for speech and language diagnostics. Results were that the children's mean-length-of-utterance (MLU) scores were better for the home sample, although there was no difference between their Developmental Sentence Scores (DSS) for the home sample and the clinic sample. The home samples yielded higher MLU stage placements (Brown, 1973) and higher estimated language ages on the DSS (Lee, 1974) for most of the children. Clinical implications of the results are discussed.

A comparative study of three language sampling methods using developmental sentence scoring

“…This would suggest multiple assessments with some chldren in order to achieve an accurate. In a study which examined DSS scores of samples obtained in the home and in the clinic settings, Kramer et al (1979) used different stimulus materials to obtain the samples. To obtain the clinic samples, a conversation task was used presenting toys and books where necessary.…”

Developmental sentence scoring : a comparative study conducted in Portland, Oregon

“…By analyzing a child's spontaneous, tape-recorded speech sample, the speech-language clinician is able to estimate the extent to which grammatical rules have been sufficiently generalized for use in the child's verbal performance. In recent years, the DSS has been used as a comparative measure in speech and language studies and used extensively as an analytical tool in determining expressive language delay (Carrow, 1974b;Longhurst and File, 1977;Kramer, James, and Saxman, 1979).…”

A comparative study of the developmental sentence scoring normative data obtained in Canby, Oregon, and the Midwest, for children between the ages of 6.0 and 6.11 years

“…Johnson (1974) stated that the familiarity of a child's social context influences his/her language production. Scott, Taylor, and White (1975), Olswang andCarpenter (1978), andKramer et al (1979) compared the quality of language collected in the home by mothers with that collected in the clinic by speech-language pathologists. Scott et al (1975) reported that sentences with greater complexity and length were produced in the home environment; whereas, the other two studies showed no significant difference in the lexical, syntactical, and semantical aspects of the language between the home and clinical environments, but the investigators reported that mothers elicited greater amounts of language per set time periods.…”

“…The investigators concluded that all three of the stimulus conditions will produce adequate language samples; however, the use of conversation or the children's personal toys may be more efficient than the use of clinic toys. Kramer et al (1979) compared the MLU and DSS scores for language samples elicited in the home by mothers and in the clinic by speechlanguage pathologists for ten children from Syracuse, New York.…”

“…Since its development, the DSS normative data have been utilized in numerous studies for analyzing children's grammatical complexity (Longhurst and File, 1977;Geers and Moog, 1978; Kramer, James, and Saxman, 1979;Valenciano, 1981;and Blaxley, Clinker, and Warr-Leeper, 1983). Although widely used with various populations and in a variety of geographical regions, little information is available regarding the effect of geographical differences on the DSS normative data.…”