Creating Language Impairments in Typically Achieving Children

Abstract

Many popular standardized language tests use a "normal" sample for their normative comparison group. This article describes the errors that result from current uses of such tests; (a) identification of normal children as language impaired, (b) provision of misleading profiles of verbal and nonverbal performance, (c) inability to estimate the severity or describe the general nature of a language impairment, and (d) a gradual increase in the number of children identified as language impaired with progressive test re-normings. Recommendations to alleviate this problem include (a) test users employing only full-range standardized tests; (b) test users using flexible cutoff scores, with the major emphasis on descriptive, criterion-referenced testing, and (c) test makers moving to full-range normative samples with descriptions of what particular test performances indicate in terms of the daily communication functioning of typically achieving children and clinical subgroups of children.