Treffer: Developmental Sentence Scoring for Preschool Language Sample Analysis: A Psychometric Update.

Title:
Developmental Sentence Scoring for Preschool Language Sample Analysis: A Psychometric Update.
Authors:
Bernstein Ratner N; University of Maryland, College Park., MacWhinney B; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA., Hong Y; University of Maryland, College Park., Yang JS; University of Maryland, College Park.
Source:
American journal of speech-language pathology [Am J Speech Lang Pathol] 2026 Jan 13; Vol. 35 (1), pp. 150-169. Date of Electronic Publication: 2026 Jan 06.
Publication Type:
Journal Article; Validation Study
Language:
English
Journal Info:
Publisher: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 9114726 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1558-9110 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 10580360 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Am J Speech Lang Pathol Subsets: MEDLINE
Imprint Name(s):
Original Publication: Rockville Md : American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
MeSH Terms:
Psychometrics* , Child Language* , Language Tests* , Language Development Disorders*/diagnosis , Language Development Disorders*/psychology , Language Development*, Humans ; Child, Preschool ; Child ; Male ; Female ; Reproducibility of Results ; Age Factors
References:
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Entry Date(s):
Date Created: 20260106 Date Completed: 20260113 Latest Revision: 20260117
Update Code:
20260117
PubMed Central ID:
PMC12805810
DOI:
10.1044/2025_AJSLP-24-00525
PMID:
41493833
Database:
MEDLINE

Weitere Informationen

Purpose: We sought to validate the ability of Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) to distinguish age and diagnostic category in a large, open-access corpus of American English-speaking adult-child language interactions at TalkBank.org. We additionally sought to identify whether subscales differed by age and diagnostic category, to explore the potential for adapting DSS to shorter language samples.
Method: We utilized data from 501 children (ages 2-6 years; 50-utterance sample criterion) and 842 children (25-utterance sample criterion) as well as the open-access DSS utility in Computerized Language Analysis to analyze growth in DSS total and subscale scores and distinguish typical- and late-talker grammatical profiles.
Results: DSS total scores were most informative at younger ages; scores of typically developing (TD) children and children with a history of late talking converged over time. The most sensitive subscale was Main Verbs (MV). Shorter samples (25 utterances) were generally as informative as longer ones. Scores derived from our analyses were generally much higher than those reported by Lee (1974).
Discussion: Shorter samples (25 utterances) are as informative as longer ones for both diagnostic and therapy planning purposes. Beyond the MV subscale, DSS may have greater utility in identifying therapy intervention targets than in diagnosing language delay. Finally, use of the original percentile scores for the DSS reported by Lee (1974) may underidentify children whose language lags significantly behind that of TD peers.
Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.30907109.