Case Study Ruby's Communication Difficulties
SLI is the delayed development of language skills that is unexplained by any medical/other issue (Watkins and Rice, 1994). As Ruby has no medical issues and acquired her first words at 18 months; which is considered delayed compared to age equivalent norms as children will usually acquire their first word at around 12 months (Yule and Rutter, 1987); this could be likely. Children with SLI often struggle with social interaction (Bishop and Leonard, 2000) this is evident in Ruby as she struggles to ‘warm’ to others.
As Ruby has frequent ear infections but not had a hearing test; her hearing ability is unknown. There is not yet enough evidence to suggest Ruby’s ear infections are the cause of her communication difficulties (Beitchman and Brownlie, …show more content…
Does Ruby’s communication affect her activity and participation at school?
Rationale:
Children with delayed receptive/expressive language ability are more prone to social communication difficulties (Parkinson, Tamhne and Law, 2000). When a child’s receptive and expressive language ability is below the norms of other children at the same age, it is likely that it will have an impact of a child’s activity and participation and social communication at school (Parkinson, Tamhne and Law, 2000).
b) Priority Clinical question: Does Ruby have expressive language difficulties? The Pre-school language scale 4th edition UK (PLS-4) (Zimmerman, Pond and Steiner, 2002) is used to identify language delay or disorder by using norm referenced age equivalents, standard scores and percentile ranks. To address the priority clinical question, the expressive communication subtest would be used as this identifies whether an expressive language difficulty is present.
The PLS-4 assessment is designed for children aged 1 to 6 years 5 months and is broken down into different age levels e.g. 1;0-1;11, 2;0-2;11 until 6;5 (Zimmerman, Pond and Steiner, 2002) This is relevant to Ruby as the assessment is age appropriate for her. Children taking the PLS-4 would need adequate hearing ability (Zimmerman, Pond and Steiner, 2002), Ruby’s hearing would need to be tested prior to
As Ruby has frequent ear infections but not had a hearing test; her hearing ability is unknown. There is not yet enough evidence to suggest Ruby’s ear infections are the cause of her communication difficulties (Beitchman and Brownlie, …show more content…
Does Ruby’s communication affect her activity and participation at school?
Rationale:
Children with delayed receptive/expressive language ability are more prone to social communication difficulties (Parkinson, Tamhne and Law, 2000). When a child’s receptive and expressive language ability is below the norms of other children at the same age, it is likely that it will have an impact of a child’s activity and participation and social communication at school (Parkinson, Tamhne and Law, 2000).
b) Priority Clinical question: Does Ruby have expressive language difficulties? The Pre-school language scale 4th edition UK (PLS-4) (Zimmerman, Pond and Steiner, 2002) is used to identify language delay or disorder by using norm referenced age equivalents, standard scores and percentile ranks. To address the priority clinical question, the expressive communication subtest would be used as this identifies whether an expressive language difficulty is present.
The PLS-4 assessment is designed for children aged 1 to 6 years 5 months and is broken down into different age levels e.g. 1;0-1;11, 2;0-2;11 until 6;5 (Zimmerman, Pond and Steiner, 2002) This is relevant to Ruby as the assessment is age appropriate for her. Children taking the PLS-4 would need adequate hearing ability (Zimmerman, Pond and Steiner, 2002), Ruby’s hearing would need to be tested prior to