Comparing Spoken Versus iPad-Administered Versions of a Narrative Retell Assessment Tool in a Practice-Based Research Partnership.

PURPOSE: In the current age of greater digital delivery of services, it is important to examine the validity and differences between spoken and digital delivery of materials. The current study is a practice-based research partnership between school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and researchers, evaluating presentation effects and validity of a narrative retell assessment tool created by SLPs. METHOD: Fifty-one children across kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 completed the narrative retell task, retelling One Frog Too Many and Frog Goes to Dinner in three in-person story presentation conditions administered 1 week apart: spoken, iPad with audio-recorded natural rate of speech, and iPad with slow rate of speech. This was followed by 10 comprehension questions related to story events. Children also completed the Story Retelling subtests from the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS). RESULTS: Children recalled significantly fewer events in the spoken condition compared to audio-recorded iPad conditions. No significant effect of speaking rate was found. Presentation condition and rate did not affect performance on comprehension questions. Correlations among retell measures and corresponding subtests on a standardized language test ranged from weak to strong, providing some evidence of concurrent validity. CONCLUSIONS: This practice-based research partnership provided valuable insight into differences in delivery modality as well as the validity of a school-based SLP created narrative retell assessment tool. This study found that rate did not impact recall of events or performance on comprehension questions. Additionally, children performed better on narrative retell measures when stories were told using an iPad. This highlights the potential for iPad delivery as an option in narrative retell tasks. Finally, this study provided an initial examination of the Narrative Evaluation Tool's validity, finding the tool captures ability to recall narrative events; however, future studies are needed to examine the tool's validity as a measure of narrative comprehension. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25260910.

Narrative Retell Assessment Using "Frog" Stories: A Practice-Based Research Speech-Language Pathology Partnership Exploring Story Equivalency.

PURPOSE: Narrative abilities are an important part of everyday conversation, playing a key role in academic settings, at home, and in social interactions. As narrative assessments are an effective method for identifying children falling below age expectations, it has been recommended they be included as a routine part of clinical language assessments. It is important that assessments meet the needs of clinicians and their practice. The current study is a practice-based research partnership, where research questions arose from a partnership with school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Working together, SLPs and researchers evaluated a bespoke narrative retell assessment tool. The current study examined recall of events in two wordless picture books, in order to evaluate story equivalency and determine if the tool was appropriate for progress monitoring. These findings were then used to develop local norms. METHOD: Two hundred sixty-three students were recruited across 12 schools in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. Students completed the narrative retell task, retelling either One Frog Too Many or Frog Goes to Dinner, followed by answering 10 comprehension questions related to story events. RESULTS: A significant effect of story was found for both main and supporting events recalled, but not for total events recalled. Total events recalled were found to be predicted by grade only. An examination of percent events recalled revealed four main and four supporting events in each story that were potentially misclassified. Reanalysis following reallocation revealed no significant effect of story for main or supporting events recalled. Normative values for each grade were created using percentile ranks of total events recalled. CONCLUSION: Through a practice-based research partnership, researchers and clinicians worked collaboratively to evaluate a tool, adapt its use, and improve evidence-based practice in a manner that was appropriate and met the needs for the clinical context.

Evaluating the Modified-Shortened Token Test as a Working Memory and Language Assessment Tool.

PURPOSE: Working memory and linguistic knowledge are highly intertwined in language tasks. Verbal working memory in particular has been studied as a potential constraint on language performance. This, in turn, highlights the need for a clinical assessment tool that will assist clinicians in understanding individual children's performance in relation to working memory and language. In this study, we investigated whether performance on the Token Test could capture differences in verbal working memory and linguistic knowledge given its manipulation of length and syntactic complexity. METHOD: In Experiment 1, 257 children ages 4-7 years completed our Modified-Shortened Token Test, in which they carried out commands of increasing length and complexity. Experiment 2 was an exploratory study that included a separate group of 24 kindergarten-age children who completed our Modified-Shortened Token Test as well as other memory and language measures. RESULTS: The factor analysis in Experiment 1 revealed a three-factor solution with factors corresponding to verbal working memory, linguistic, and basic attention constructs. In Experiment 2, we conducted exploratory correlations between composite scores formed based on identified factors (from Experiment 1) and related measures. Recalling sentences and formulating sentences correlated with the working memory demands of the Token Test, whereas following directions and word structure correlated with Token Test linguistic factor. CONCLUSIONS: A modified Token Test has the potential to be used clinically to understand language performance. In particular, differential performance across sentences could reveal relative verbal working memory and linguistic knowledge abilities. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19178474.