SLDT-A

Features and benefits

• Assesses students' language-based responses to portrayed, peer-to-peer situations.
• Differentiates typically developing adolescents from those with language learning disorders or autism.
• Shows statistically significant age progression and focuses on skills proven to be deeply sensitive to the subtle aspects of social language development.
• Delineates the skills students need to be successful on each subtest and each task within a subtest and applies them to academic performance and peer interactions.
• Identifies error patterns and outlines the implications of different types of errors.
• Guides the examiner to make appropriate and educationally relevant recommendations for remediation based on a clear understanding of each subtest.
• Includes remediation strategies that can be incorporated into a therapy program or shared with teachers and parents.

Test structure

The Social Language Development Test: Adolescent comprises five subtests:

• Subtest A: Making Inferences. Asks the student to take the perspective of someone in a photograph and, based on the context clues (facial expression, gesture, posture), tell what the person is thinking.
• Subtest B: Interpreting Social Language. Examines the student's social metalinguistic skills. Questions are designed to tap a variety of skills that reflect how people communicate.
• Subtest C: Problem Solving (Stating and Justifying Solutions). Asks the student to imagine being in a problem situation with a friend and propose an appropriate, logical solution as well as justify why that solution would be a good one.
• Subtest D: Social Interaction. Asks the student to assume the perspective of a main character in a situation with a peer, consider the perspective of the peer, and make a comment or do something to support the peer.
• Subtest E: Interpreting Ironic Statements. Asks the student to listen to a situation on an audio CD and demonstrate an understanding of the dialogue, including idioms, and interpret its irony and sarcasm.

Technical information

• The test was standardized on 834 subjects who represented the latest national school population demographics from the latest National Census for race, gender, age, and educational placement. Test performances reflect typically achieving students as well as those in subgroups found in the school population. In addition, 68 subjects with language disorders and autism spectrum disorders were used in the validity studies.
• Reliability was established by the use of SEM, Inter-Rater Reliability, Test-Retest, and Reliability Based on Item Homogeneity (KR20). Given the uniqueness of the test, the clinical population, and scoring criteria, the reliability is considered highly satisfactory.
• Validity was established by the use of construct and contrasted group validity. Results revealed highly satisfactory levels of item consistency (97%). Internal consistency estimates are clearly satisfactory. The test significantly discriminates between contrasted groups for every subtest and the total test. These results are highly satisfactory and substantiate that the test differentiates students with language disorders or autism spectrum disorders from students developing language normally.