Language and Literacy in Young People

January 01, 2020

The Curtin University Discourse Protocol – Adolescent version (CUDP-A) is a freely available discourse protocol specifically designed to assess adolescent discourse skills. The protocol guides the elicitation and scoring of four monologic discourse genres: personal recount, expository (informative), persuasive, and fictional narrative. The protocol contains a scoring guide to characterise word to whole-text level language features (guided by Coelho, 2007). A recent publication by Lizz Hill and her PhD supervisory team (Hill, Claessen, Whitworth & Boyes 2020 ) provides a large sample of adolescent reference data for the CUDP-A scoring protocol (across 160 adolescents between 12 to 15 years old).

The CUDP-A was designed, developed, and evaluated by Lizz Hill, Dr Mary Claessen, Associate Professor Anne Whitworth, and Dr Mark Boyes as part of Lizz’s PhD thesis.  Additional information about Lizz’s thesis and links to her publications are available through the ABOUT OUR RESEARCH and RESOURCES pages on this website.

This is a freely available oral narrative programme delivered in a book sharing context. The manual contains the background, links to the literature and theory, and 18 session plans. It was designed, developed and evaluated by Laura Glisson in her MPhil research. Links to her thesis and published paper are on our RESEARCH AND RESOURCES page on this website.

This is a freely available 16 session small group intervention programme targeting oral inferential comprehension of narratives. It was evaluated in a randomised controlled trial with young children with developmental language disorder, reported in 

https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/56528

and soon to be published in a peer reviewed journal.

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The Peter and the Cat Narrative Comprehension Assessment (NCA) was developed as an assessment of discourse-level oral narrative comprehension in young children. It was developed as part of doctoral research at Curtin University in Western Australia, which investigated oral inferential comprehension in young children with developmental language disorder (Dawes, 2017).

The doctoral thesis for which this assessment was developed is freely available from: https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/56528

The NCA provides separate literal and inferential scores, giving the clinician/teacher an understanding of the child’s ability to orally comprehend narratives at both a literal and inferential level. The Peter and the Cat NCA was used as a measure of narrative comprehension generalisation in the randomised controlled trial of an oral inferential comprehension book sharing intervention (Dawes, Leitão, Claessen, & Kane, 2019).

This assessment is free for use in conjunction with the Peter and the Cat Narrative Assessment for iPad or hard copy,

Antonette Seiler (2016) The effectiveness of a computer-supported intervention targeting phonological recoding and orthographic processing for children with word reading impairment

Toni’s PhD research aimed to develop and evaluate an intervention that specifically targets phonological recoding and orthographic processing (a decoding intervention) for children with persistent word-reading impairment.


The full thesis is available at:

https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/1251

And a published paper on this work is available here:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1460-6984.12388

Access to the app which was developed and evaluated in the research is freely available from:

https://www.worddriver.com/

The Squirrel Story Narrative Comprehension Assessment (NCA) was developed as an assessment of discourse-level oral narrative comprehension in young children. It was developed as part of doctoral research at Curtin University which investigated oral inferential comprehension in young children with developmental language disorder (Dawes, 2017).

The NCA provides separate literal and inferential scores, giving the clinician an understanding of the child’s ability to orally comprehend narratives at both a literal and inferential level. The NCA provides clinicians and teachers with an assessment tool which can support the development of intervention goals. It is:

1. Quick to administer and easy to administer alongside the Squirrel Story Narrative Retell assessment,

2. Easy to score,
3. And provides separate scores for literal and inferential comprehension.

The Squirrel Story NCA was used as a measure of narrative comprehension progress in a randomised controlled trial of an oral inferential comprehension book sharing intervention (Dawes, Leitão, Claessen, & Kane, 2019), alongside the Squirrel Story (Black Sheep Press BSP).

Squirrel Story’ is a narrative re-telling task that yields a descriptive profile of a child’s development of key narrative competencies. It was designed by Judith Carey, speech and language therapist. Judith designed our nursery and reception narrative packs. The hard copy version of the assessment has been available since 2006.

The test is based on the Peter and the Cat Narrative Assessment designed by speech and language pathologists, Leanne Allan and Suze Leitão in collaboration with the teachers and principal of a Language Development Centre in Western Australia following more than seven years of development and testing.

It provides a profile around 6 key areas of narrative in young children. Quick to administer, easy to score.

Although the tool’s primary use is with children who have language delay and disorders, the assessment can be used for children with a variety of language needs whether the primary deficit is due to disorder, delay or language deprivation.

The ‘Squirrel Story’ is not norm referenced, however guideline scores are presented from a sample of 100 children, these are included in the App Manual.

The assessment is also a useful tool to determine therapy goals and/or curriculum planning.

This established assessment is used by therapists, teachers and researchers across the world and is recommended in the recent influential publication, ‘Developing language and literacy: effective intervention in the early years’, Julia M. Carroll et al, 2011.

The iPad version of the assessment uses the same profiling of language skills as the original but brings together an illustrated ebook with voice overs, audio recording, on screen profiling, dictation facility (new iPad only), automatic report generation, iCloud, Dropbox and email connections, enabling an assessment to be made quickly and efficiently with less preparation time.

The final report, together with the audio recording of the child’s re-tell, can be transferred to a desktop computer via email or Dropbox. The report is in plain text so it can easily be incorporated into other reports or case files.

The iPad version has new illustrations by the children's illustrator Mike Phillips, who also illustrated the Peter and the Cat Narrative Assessment for 5-9 year old children.

 The voice-overs for the story can be selected from UK, US, and Australian speakers.

 Issues of confidentiality have been taken into account by password protecting data.

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION

Description: The Squirrel Story Narrative Assessment complements the more formal assessment tools available to the speech-language therapist or teacher. It provides a profile around 6 key areas of narrative in young children. Quick to administer, easy to score.

Aims: Although the tool’s primary use is with children who have language delay and disorders, the assessment can be used for children with a variety of language needs whether the primary deficit is due to disorder, delay or language deprivation.

The ‘Squirrel Story’ is not norm referenced, however guideline scores are presented from a sample of 100 children.

The illustrated booklet now has updated pictures, these are the same as on the iPad App.

Recommended in: Carroll, Bowyer-Crane, Duff, Hulme, Snowling, (2011), Developing Language & Literacy: effective intervention in the early years. Chichester: Wiley.

Age Range:3-6 years

Alternative Uses: It is a useful tool to determine therapy goals and/or curriculum planning.

Contents: Manual, illustrated booklet as visual prompt, photocopiable score sheets.

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION

Peter and the Cat was originally published in Australia in 1993 by speech and language pathologists, Leanne Allan and Suze Leitão in collaboration with the teachers and principal of a Language Development Centre in Western Australia.
This edition has been updated with new pictures and more information on task administration and data profiling. Modifications have been made to the profiles based on feedback from the many users of the first edition.

Recommended in: Carroll, Bowyer-Crane, Duff, Hulme, Snowling, (2011), Developing Language & Literacy: effective intervention in the early years. Chichester: Wiley.

The pack comprises:

• An illustrated A5 booklet with 9 full colour pictures illustrating the story of Peter and the Cat for use as a visual prompt.

• An instruction manual including detailed examples of the analysis, case studies and links to intervention materials.

• The forms required for recording and analysing the child’s output are on card, for use as photocopy masters, keeping the cost of using the test to a minimum.

 Aims: Peter and the Cat is not a norm-referenced test but a task that yields a descriptive profile of the child’s development of key narrative competencies. The profiling methods and developmental continua bring together understandings of narrative from the literature and from the data collected during our development of the assessment.

Peter and the Cat can be used:

1. To develop skills in assessing and profiling narrative skills;

2. To analyse narrative data and plan developmentally appropriate goals;

3. To link goals to individual, group and classroom programmes;

4. To monitor individual and group progress;

5. To integrate speech-language therapy and classroom objectives;

6. To facilitate a collaborative team approach to intervention;

7. For general research e.g. comparison of clinical populations;

8. As a professional development tool.

 Age Range: 5-9

Contents: Manual, illustrated booklet as visual prompt, photocopiable score sheets.

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION

Peter and the Cat’ is a narrative re-telling task that yields a descriptive profile of a child’s development of key narrative competencies. It was designed by speech and language pathologists, Leanne Allan and Suze Leitão in collaboration with the teachers and principal of a Language Development Centre in Western Australia following more than seven years of development and testing.

Narrative sampling allows the capture of key skills required in the transition to a literate style of language so critical for school success. In addition, sampling oral language beyond the sentence level provides information on broader communicative competence.

This established assessment is used by therapists, teachers and researchers across the world and is recommended in the recent influential publication, ‘Developing language and literacy: effective intervention in the early years’, Julia M. Carroll et al, 2011.

The iPad version of the assessment uses the same profiling of language skills but brings together an illustrated ebook with voice overs, audio recording, on screen profiling, dictation facility (new iPad only), automatic report generation, iCloud, Dropbox and email connections, enabling an assessment to be made quickly and efficiently with less preparation time.

The final report, together with the audio recording of the child’s re-tell, can be transferred to a desktop computer via email or Dropbox. The report is in plain text so it can easily be incorporated into other reports or case files.

The voice-overs for the story can be selected from UK, US, Australian and South African speakers.

Issues of confidentiality have been taken into account by password protecting data.

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION

‘Outside the square’ Empowering Children with Dyslexia in our schools (2015).

Outside the Square is a series of films to increase awareness and understanding of dyslexia in our education system

DVD set produced by Tanya Forbes, co-funded by Federal Government, Launched by Christopher Pyne (then Federal Education Minister)

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION