A Comparison of Language Elicitation Methods in Typically Developing 5-6 year old and 11-12 year old Children

Background The umbrella term 'naturalistic assessment' includes a wide variety of assessment methods encompassing many forms of conversation and narration techniques. Currently it is unclear whether any elicitation method is clinically superior in terms of the amount of language, complexity and diversity of language. Presently no research exists exploring the clinical implications of naturalistic language sampling, such as the amount of time it will take a clinician to complete the process of elicitation, transcription and analysis. Aims The purpose of this study is to explore whether different elicitation techniques: book narration, video narration, conversation with the researcher or conversation with a peer effect the language gathered from typically developing children. It will also explore the effect age and or gender may have on language sampling. The final aim of the study was to establish how long it takes a clinician to transcribe and carry out a LARSP analysis on a spontaneous language sample. Methodology Language samples were taken from eight typically developing children using four elicitation methods. Samples were analysed using 14 key measures, all of which quantified amount, complexity or diversity of language. Four speech and language therapists (SLTs) recorded how long it took them to transcribe and perform a LARSP analysis on the data of one child participant. Results Results of this study showed two significant differences between the age ranges 5-6 year olds and 11-12 year olds. One significant result was found from gender comparisons. Comparisons between the elicitation methods yielded four significant results, of which measures of language diversity accounted for three and amount of language produced accounted for one. There was a significant difference between elicitation methods in the amount of time it takes an SLT to analyse it using LARSP. The results also showed that for all elicitation techniques the analysis of the data took a significantly longer amount of time to complete than the transcription. Conclusions It can be concluded that age or gender of the child does not greatly impact on a language elicitation method. The type of elicitation technique employed did influence the amount and diversity of the language produced, however, language complexity was not affected by the elicitation technique in this study. An elicitation method should be chosen based on what kind of language the clinician wishes to achieve. Where significant results were observed, a conversation method always exhibited the higher mean, therefore if the goal is to obtain a greater quantity of more diverse language conversation should be used. The clinician should consider that this study showed conversation with a peer to take longer to analyse then narration methods, and that analysis appears to be more time consuming than transcription.msc_sltunpub1763_ethesesunpu