New Test Results - language disorder

I wanted to share our recent test results on this board. Michelle has a language disorder of some kind. At school she has the dx of SLD and SLI.

She is age 9yrs 3mo at time of testing. % of course means percentile with 50%ile being exactly average. N/A = a valid score could not be attained because Michelle could not perform the task AT ALL. — means that she did not do the test this year for whatever reason. Some scores show comparison from a year ago, but others are new tests that she did not do in 2007.

PPVT-R (Peobody Picture Vocabular Test - Revised)

1st% AE 5-1

TOLD-P (Test of Language Development - Primary)

2007 2008
Picture Vocabulary 9% 9%
Relational Vocabulary N/A 9%
Oral Vocabulary N/A 25%
Gram. Understanding 1% 9%
Sentence Imitation <1% 1%
Word Discrimination N/A —
Phonemic Analysis 50% —
Word Articulation 50% 50%

CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing)

2007 2008
Blending Words 63% 63%
Blending Nonwords 75% —
Sound Matching 25% —
Memory for digits 9% 9%
Nonword repetition 37% —
Elision N/A 9%
Rapid Color Naming 9% 37%
Rapid Object Naming <1% 25%
Rapid Digit Naming — 16%
Rapid Letter Naming — 16%

TAPS R (Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills - Revised)

2008
Auditory Number Memory:
Forward 2%
Reversed 58%
Auditory Sentence Memory 6%
Auditory Word Memory 6%
Auditory Word Discrimination 50%
Auditory Processing 3%

RAN/RAS Tests (Rapid Automatized Naming and Rapid Alternating Stimulus Tests)

2008
Objects 14%
Colors 30%
Numbers 45%
Letters 21%
2 Set Letters/Numbers 7%
3 Set Letters/Numbers/Colors 5%

The most shocking to us was the reversed number memory because it involves working memory and requires 2 separate processes at the same time. The reason she scored as high as she did is because she made a visual picture in her head. She was reading her visual picture. Creating images in her head has been a focus for therapy as well as at school for reading comprehension. She generalized this strategy and used it, which is the most exciting thing to me. The one subtest that I think is inaccurate is the numbers forward. I know she struggles with this, but later the therapist had her do it again and she did quite well, but it was not as part of the testing. Also, it was odd because she was able to recall 4 digits, but not 3 during the test. So, she could have been distracted. I’m not going to worry about it. The scores do not change anything in terms of therapy choices or educational decisions.

She’s been participating in private therapy for 11 months 3x/week in summer and 2x/week during school year. She’s been doing the Lindamood Bell V/V program at school, which has helped tremendously with reading comprehension. Her teacher told me in March her comprehension went up 10 levels in 2 months time. We think that has a lot to do with the visualization strategies she has been learning.

Kathryn