Listening comprehension- assessment tools

Hi Meme!

Speech and language assessment of receptive language is generally the first choice- and most SLP’s give the CELF. There are some others- The Test of Listening Comprehension I think? Pattim would know.

The WJIII (new Woodcock) has a section in the achievement battery on oral expression that has a listening comprehension cluster. My experience is that it lines up fairly well with most Speech and Language testing.

More informally- say for yearly evals- many informal reading inventories can be given- and have directions for- listening comp. You read the story and do the comprehension piece (retelling and questions) just as if the child had read the story. This will give you a grade level (indep, instruc. and frustration) as opposed to a standard score.

Is this helpful?

Robin

I’ll have to go back and reread the definition of LD………….I did not realize listening comprehension was an area for LD services. However, I use listening comprehension in several ways:

1. I have several language students (not reading LD) and I use the following: Woodcock Johnson III Story Recall, Following directions, oral vocabulary, and I guess it is called listening comprehension. I also like the WIAT Listening comprehension subtest (I borrow the WIAT from the psych). I also sometimes use an informal reading inventory, read the passages to the student and ask the comprehension questions. The fun part if trying to figure out exactly WHY the student does not understand oral language, this usually falls to the speech/language therapist and points to a “language” disability.

2. I also use listening comprehension to screen when I do the first round of testing. If we have great listening comprehension and poor reading, then we probably do have an LD.

Ironically my daughter has great listening comprehension and great auditory memory as long as she is paying attention. She is getting better at her expressive and receptive language but it has been a long haul and we still have far to go. Her reading is at great level but she still gets impulsive and guesses using context when she comes across large multisyllable words. When I stop her she breaks it down but I think part of the problem is the impulsivity impounded by her weak vocabulary. I have a theory that the more vocabulary these kids know that they can recognize by sight the better their speed will be. She has the ability to decode and spell phonetically but she still glitches on the speed and vocabulary piece and I suppose that is where the ADD and the rapid automatic naming component create havoc..We do a lot of VV as we read books together. It takes a ton of time but we are making headway.