Dear Readers,
The articles in this issue address the potential for language sample analysis (LSA) to help identify spoken and written language difficulties, determine important therapeutic goals, and effectively monitor treatment progress when working with individuals who are at risk for or have been identified with a language disorder. They also shed light on many shortcomings of conventional LSA and associated measures, while offering suggestions for overcoming at least some of these shortcomings using novel approaches and measures. First, Eisenberg discusses three underused LSA measures for morphosyntactic competence, an area of great importance for SLPs working with children. Then, Lundine describes elicitation and analysis of expository discourse, which is often neglected in favor of using LSA with conversational or narrative discourse. Next, Spencer, Bryant, and Colyvas describe how variability due to time and sample length affect reliability of LSA measures and offer readers a means of determining if within-individual changes are due to substantive growth due to treatment or simply normal variation. Following that, two papers focus on the use of LSA with bilingual children. Ebert describes how LSA might be employed for the identification of developmental language disorder in bilingual children, while Guiberson reports data regarding the associations among alternative LSA measures—clinician-reported and parent–reported longest utterance(s), traditional LSA measures, and a norm-referenced language test in a sample of preschool bilingual children. The last article by Scott centers on LSA of writing samples in school-age children and adolescents.
Sarah E. Wallace, Ph.D., Co-Editor
Gary A. Troia, PhD, Co-Editor
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF TLD REVIEWERS
We also draw your attention to the list of reviewers who have contributed reviews for TLD in recent years. TLD depends on scholars who accept invitations to conduct blind peer reviews of the submitted and contributed articles as a means of maintaining its high quality as a peer-reviewed journal. We publish reviewers' names periodically as a form of appreciation, but in a manner that individual reviewers cannot be connected to individual articles.
CHANGES IN CONTINUING EDUCATION PROCEDURES—AND SPECIAL RATE FOR SUBSCRIBERS
As a reminder, we have recently rolled out changes in how TLD continuing education tests may be taken. Tests for individual articles now may be completed online via
http://alliedhealth.ceconnection.com/browse/professions. At this website, readers can find all Wolters Kluwer CE activities available for speech-language pathologists. Starting with Vol. 36 (Nos. 3 and 4), all articles in each issue of TLD are available individually for CEU credit online. TLD subscribers receive a discounted price for all CE, both in print and online. As before, an annual ASHA CE Registry fee is required to register ASHA CEUs. ASHA CE Registry fees are paid by the participant directly to the ASHA National Office.
[Note: The ASHA CE Registry fee allows registration to an unlimited number of ASHA CEUs for a calendar year. Contact the ASHA staff at 800-498-2071 ext. 4219 for CE Registry fee subscription information.]
