CSD-4100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Nonverbal Communication, Language Processing In The Brain, Pragmatics
26 Feb 2019
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Communication Sampling Procedures
• Communication Sample Analysis
o Provides supplemental information to data collected from standardized instruments
o Particularly useful for culturally diverse populations
o Improves sensitivity and ecological validity of comprehensive assessment
o Serves as a functional assessment
o Purpose and method of sampling varies according to developmental level
o Can be used with clients of all ages to investigate a broad range of speech and language
difficulties, including:
▪ Nonverbal communication, language, and speech
• Sampling Procedures: Nonverbal Communication
o Provides information on the client’s functional comprehension skills, frequency and
function of communicative attempts, communication modalities and cognitive-linguistic
correlates.
o Sample should include at least 20 purposeful acts of client communication
(approximately 15–20 minutes for active communicators).
o Necessary to video record nonverbal clients since a large proportion of their
communicative acts will be visually observable.
o Audio recordings are less useful as they miss information.
o The following behaviors collected during the sample should be tallied and analyzed:
o Receptive language skills, communication strategies, and frequency and function of
communicative attempts.
o Provides information on the client’s functional comprehension skills, frequency and
function of communicative attempts, communication modalities and cognitive-linguistic
correlates.
o Sample should include at least 20 purposeful acts of client communication
(approximately 15–20 minutes for active communicators).
o Necessary to video record nonverbal clients since a large proportion of their
communicative acts will be visually observable.
▪ Audio recordings are less useful as they miss information.
o The following behaviors collected during the sample should be tallied and analyzed:
▪ Receptive language skills, communication strategies, and frequency and
function of communicative attempts.
• Sampling Procedures: Language
o Provides information on the client’s vocabulary, syntax, and pragmatics.
o Sampling methodology changes over the course of development:
▪ Preschoolers: Play interactions using toys and familiar people (15–30-min
sample).
• Children between 1–5 years are acquiring basic words and sentence
structures so sampling typically focuses on production of syntactical
structures and morphological markers.
o For a comprehensive evaluation clinicians will also assess
semantics and pragmatics.
