Assessing functional language (Heilmann et al., 2020)

Purpose:The goal of this clinical focus article is to illustratehow speech-language pathologists can document thefunctional language of school-age children using languagesample analysis (LSA). Advances in computer hardware andsoftware are detailed making LSA more accessible for clinical use.Method: The article illustrates how documenting schoolagestudent’s communicative functioning is central tocomprehensive assessment and how using LSA can meetmultiple needs within this assessment. LSA can documentstudents’ meaningful participation in their daily life throughassessment of their language used during everyday tasks.The many advances in computerized LSA are detailed witha primary focus on the Systematic Analysis of LanguageTranscripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2019). The LSA process isreviewed detailing the steps necessary for computersto calculate word, morpheme, utterance, and discoursefeatures of functional language.Conclusion: These advances in computer technologyand software development have made LSA clinicallyfeasible through standardized elicitation and transcriptionmethods that improve accuracy and repeatability. Inaddition to improved accuracy, validity, and reliabilityof LSA, databases of typical speakers to documentstatus and automated report writing more than justifythe time required. Software now provides manyinnovations that make LSA simpler and more accessiblefor clinical use.Supplemental Material S1. Play based—preschool.Supplemental Material S2. Conversation—school age.Supplemental Material S3. Narrative retell— Frog, where are you? (Mayer, 2003).Supplemental Material S4. Expository—school age.Supplemental Material S5. Persuasion.Heilmann, J., Tucci, A., Plante, E., & Miller, J. F. (2020). Assessing functional language in school-aged children using language sample analysis. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_PERSP-19-00079