CELF-4 Evaluation

Assessment The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamental – Fourth Edition (CELF-4) was utilized to assess Amanda’s communication skills. CELF-4 is a standardized assessment used to diagnose language disorders in individuals 5-21 years of age. CELF-4 includes standard scores, percentile ranks, and age equivalence for the following areas: core language score, receptive language score, expressive language scores, language structure, language content, language memory, and working memory indexes. The total administration time for this assessment is between 30 minutes to 60 minutes. In order to determine level of severity of the disorder the following key was utilized: mild language disorder (scores between 84-75), moderate language disorder
Results Results from CELF-4 were evaluated in order to determine the appropriate intervention strategies. Based on the CELF-4 Amanda obtained the following scores for Core Language: standard score of 76 and percentile rank of 5. Based on this assessment the client is -1 standard deviations from the norm and performed as well as 5% of the total population that took this assessment. Amanda presents with a mild language disorder. Amanda obtained the following scores for Receptive Language Index: standard score of 73 and percentile rank of 4. According to this assessment the client is -1 standard deviations from the norm and performed as well as 4% of the total population that took this assessment. Amanda presents with a mild to moderate receptive language disorder. Amanda obtained the following scores for Expressive Language Index: standard score of 77 and percentile rank of 6. Based on this assessment the client is -1 standard deviations from the norm
The Reciprocal Teaching Method (RT) developed by Palinscar and Brown (1984) is a method where students are taught four comprehension strategies including: predicting, questioning, clarification, and summarization (Kamhi and Catts, 1999). The purpose of this method is to aid readers comprehend reading material. Upon results from Amanda’s testing and case history she is an adequate candidate for this method, this method will help her comprehend reading material. Carol Greenway (2002), described the results of a quasi-experiment in which Reciprocal Teaching Method was implemented in a sixth grade classroom where students showed poor scores in standardized testing in their previous academic year. The main purpose of this experiment was to investigate improvement of student’s comprehension skills within a mainstream classroom, notes were kept on children’s self -assessments of their progress. Results of this experiment showed an improvement in the students reading and comprehension (Greenway, 2002). A newer approach based on the same principles of Reciprocal Teaching will be recommended to be used in Amanda’s classroom: Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) by Klinger and Vaughn (1999). Like the Reciprocal Teaching Method comprehension is the ultimate goal, yet this approach differs from Reciprocal Teaching by having students placed in small cooperative groups using four reading