ASHA Learning Pass

Written expression is one of the four major modalities (along with listening comprehension, spoken expression, and reading decoding and comprehension) that SLPs need to assess when identifying language and literacy disorders among school-age children and adolescents. This session shares a framework for analyzing the variety of tasks used for written language assessment on standardized tests and considers pros and cons of each to inform decisions regarding eligibility and dismissal. The session includes opportunities to practice applying a multilevel language analysis system to written language samples of students with varied profiles.

This course is a recorded session from the 2022/2023 online conference “Assessment, Eligibility, and Dismissal in Schools: Strategies, Tools, and Decision-Making.”

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• Dscribe the pros and cons of varied formal tasks designed to assess written expression as part of comprehensive language and literacy evaluation for purposes of eligibility and dismissal in schools 
• Apply a language levels model to quantify and qualitatively describe samples of students’ written language at discourse, sentence, and word (vocabulary and spelling) levels

Nickola Wolf Nelson, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-CL, is a Board Certified Specialist in Child Language and Professor Emerita at Western Michigan University. Nelson studies language/literacy development and disorders in school-age children and adolescents, including ways to be relevant to their language learning needs in school settings. She chaired the ASHA Committee that produced the ASHA position statement and technical reports on SLP Roles in Reading and Writing and is an author of the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills. Nelson was the editor of Topics in Language Disorders in 2005–2018. She is an ASHA Fellow and received Honors of the Association as well as the Kleffner Clinical Career Award from the ASHFoundation.

Financial Disclosures:

• Royalties for Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills and Student Language Scales from Brookes Publishing 
• Federal grant funding for much of the research behind this presentation, but the views presented are the author's own and not the U.S. government's

Nonfinancial Disclosures:

• None

Assessment Type

Self-assessment—Think about what you learned and report on the Completion Form how you will use your new knowledge.

To earn continuing education credit, you must complete the learning assessment by April 11, 2028.

Program History and CE Information

Online conference dates: October 12–24, 2022, February 1-13, 2023
End date: April 11, 2028