The co-occurring and restricted structures procedure as a mechanism for assessment of language and intervention programmes in students with hearing impairment

Master of EducationProfessionals working in the field of education of the hearing impaired are frequently concerned with the inadequate oral language performance of students in their care. Formal approaches to assess the language of hearing impaired students are commonly used by Speech Pathologists. This paper questions the appropriateness of formal assessment procedures to deal with the linguistic needs of the school-aged hearing impaired student. It investigates two language assessment tools (the CORS procedure and the LARSP), both dissimilar to formal approaches. The CORS procedure, i.e. Co-occurring and Restricted Structures (Muma, 1973), was chosen on the basis that it is individualised and describes current learning of grammatical systems. The Language Assessment, Remediation and Screening Procedure or LARSP (Crystal, Fletcher and Garman. 1976), compares with the CORS by describing a student's verbal behaviour sampled from natural conversation, but differs by way of selecting linguistic targets from a norm-based profile. The study focused on the CORS procedure for which limited current literature on its application was found. It was hypothesised that the CORS and the LARSP, as assessment tools, would identify appropriate linguistic targets, which, when addressed in an intervention programme, would facilitate learning of those targets for the hearing impaired student. The two assessment tools were applied to two hearing impaired students aged 9.4 years and 10.2 years, both presenting with marked delay in grammatical development. The procedures were used to describe each child's grammatical system and determine linguistic targets. The students were administered an intervention programme for each target and testing was conducted over three periods (preintervention, intervention and post intervention). A comparison was made between the effectiveness of the CORS and the LARSP. Students showed significant learning of linguistic targets from both procedures and the hypotheses were supported. No clear evidence was provided supporting one procedure as more successful than the other. The study identifies the need for Teachers of the Deaf to be equipped to administer individualised assessments through the use of descriptive procedures