ASSESSMENT OF

PRAGMATICS

Objectives:

• Definition

• Narrow and Broad views of pragmatics

• Pragmatics involve aspects of language

• Pragmatic Implications of Assessment

• Approaches of assessment

• Pragmatics:– Is the study of the rules governing the use of language in a social

context

• Narrow and Broad views of pragmatics:

Narrow view:

– Pragmatics is seen as additional level of language above phonology, syntax, and semantics

– i.e. discourse/conversational skills e.g. turn-taking, producing, and understanding speech acts, making reference, telling stories and repairing conversational breakdowns

– Is concerned with set of rules of using language which are separate from rules of linguistic structure (phonology, semantics, syntax)

Narrow and Broad views of pragmatics (Cont’d) Broad view:– is concerned with the integration of linguistic

structure and conversational rules

– Qs: whether particular conversational problems are the result of structural deficits or whether structural deficits are a reflection of problems at the pragmatic level e.g.

• Does a child have difficulty in making reference to non-present persons or objects because of an inability to construct relative clauses, or does the need to develop the ability to construct relative clauses only emerge when the child becomes aware of his/her communicative functions?

• Aspects of the broad view:are concerned with– Such questions and looking for communicative & functional

explanations of language development

– the study of situational effects of language usage relevance for speech and language therapy• Examines all features of context that might have an effect on the child’s

linguistic performance such as: nature of the task, setting, conversational partners, clinical interviews

– Methodological issues such as data collection & transcription methods used to collect language samples, e.g.• video-recordings to capture significant non-linguistic features• Detailed transcription that includes self repetitions, pauses, overlapped turns,

non-verbal behaviours

• Pragmatics involve the following aspects of language– The study of discourse and conversational skills

– The study of relationships between pragmatics and other levels of language

– the study of situational determinants of the use of language

Pragmatic Implications of Assessment:1. the realization that: a) language is fundamentally an integration of structural and pragmatic

knowledge and that communication and b) that communication also involves the integration of linguistic, social,

and cognitive shows the importance of natural language use

• Assessment of the children’s use of language need be a naturalistic assessment e.g. informal chat

2. Assessment can not involve one member of the dyad only, be it the child or adult (parent)

• because the effects of the interaction is bidirectional, it is important to consider the significant role adults play in facilitating or constraining communication

• Assessment of a very young child should include caregiver-child interaction and the assessment of a young adolescent should include adult-child and child-child peer contexts

Pragmatic Implications of Assessment(Cont’d):3. assessment of any particular aspect of language needs to amalgamate

the contribution of pragmatic knowledge with the contribution of structural-semantic knowledge, i.e.

• a failure of a child to produce a particular syntactic structure in the clinic, with a clinician as conversational partner

A. Signifies that child is not able to produce that particular syntactic structure in a strange environment (clinic) and with a non-familiar conversational partner (clinician).

B. Does not necessarily mean that child does not have that structure in his/her linguistic system, or that, given a different context (home with a parent), this structure will not be used

• A child who follows commands (from parents) of everyday routine activities

A. understands the structures referring to the order of events in time B. Does not necessarily mean the child’s linguistic system can cope with this type of

information or a different structural information

APPROACHES of ASSESSMENT

• ethnographic method

• checklist approach

• Standardized test

Ethnographic method:

• What is it?• Refers to a method of study of events and persons in

which one of the main aims is to discern underlying rules

and patterns which operate for the participants

• It focuses on the results of assessment; e.g. the number

of times a child performs a task correctly and emphasizes

on the processes of assessment; e.g. how the child seems

to arrive at a particular task performance especially in

cases where the child’s answers are incorrect

Ethnographic method (Cont’d):• It is characterized by the following:• inductive:

– i.e. analyst makes observations in selected contexts, collects data, and draws conclusions from a careful examination of the data

• Involves qualitative analysis– i.e. detailed examination of how the action gets performed

• Naturalistic– Because it observes events in their natural settings

– i.e. observe child in a variety of contexts which reflects the child’s everyday communicative situations

Ethnographic method (Cont’d):• To Adopt the perspective of the subject under analysis

– i.e. it involves a child-centered perspective in which an attempt would be made to view the communicative context from the viewpoint of the child

– Here the analyst examines the way in which the child actually uses the skill in question and attempts its effectiveness in terms of the child’s perspective rather than measuring the child’s performance against norms of expected or desired behavior

Ethnographic method (Cont’d):• Constructionist – as it examines the process of an event rather than its

outcome

– In an interaction involving an adult and a child, the emphasis would be on how both adult and child actively contribute to the interaction that evolves rather than treating the interaction as directed by one of the participants- usually the adult

CHECKLISTS OF PRAGMATIC SKILLS• Pre-assessment Questionnaire• The Pragmatics Profile of Early Communication Skills• Assessing the Pragmatic Ability of Children• An Approach to Developing Conversational Competence• Towards a Profile of Conversational Ability• The Pragmatic Protocol• Analysis of Language-Impaired Children’s Conversation (ALICC)• BLADES

• The first 2 are used to elicit information from parents and others interacting with the child about the child’s communicative behaviors- i.e. reports about child’s communication

• The others are used to analyze recordings and samples of actual communicative situations

Pre-assessment Questionnaire• Is intended as a supplement to standard assessment

procedures

• Provides basic information about contextual factors influencing the child’s communicative behaviors– Communicative partner clinician Vs brother– Activities playing with toys he likes, a friend

• Includes 3 parts– 1st part:

• basic information family members who live in the child’s home

Pre-assessment Questionnaire(Cont’d) – 2nd part:

1. Questions about the nature of the child’s communicative difficulties

2. questions concerning how the child’s behavior changes when interacting

A. with different partners– friend, younger and older siblings, teacher, mother, father, familiar &

unfamiliar adults, small group, etc.

B. in different contexts such as talking about– things he has done, things he will do, things he is doing, things

someone else is doing, and familiar and unfamiliar toys or activities, etc.

– 3rd part:• Questions about the child’s best and most frequent communicative

situations

The Pragmatics Profile of Early Communication Skills

• It provides information about the children’s use of language in a variety of contexts

• It is used with infants and pre-school children

• It helps identifying aspects of child’s communication which need to be developed or modified

• Is concerned with 4 aspects of the child’s communication skills:

– communicative intentions– responses to communication– interaction and conversation– contextual variation

The Pragmatics Profile of Early Communication Cont’d)) Skills• Communicative intentions

– Covers a range of speech acts• requesting - rejecting – protesting- greeting – naming- commenting-

giving information

• Response to communication– Addresses questions such as

• How the parent gets the child’s attention

• How the child responds in interaction

• Whether the child– understands gestures

– acknowledges previous utterances

– understands a speaker’s intentions

– Responds to ‘no’

The Pragmatics Profile of Early Communication Skills (Cont’d)• Interaction & conversation

– Includes questions about interactive aspects of the child’s communication;

such as• How exchanges are initiated and maintained

• How the child – Initiates and responds to conversations

– terminates and joins conversation

• Contextual variation– It examines

• the persons, places, times and topics which produce the child’s best communication

• how the child uses language intrapersonally in play as well as interpersonally with

peer

• the child’s awareness of social conventions

The Pragmatics Profile of Early Communication Skills (Cont’d)

• Weaknesses:– Parental reports may be unreliable• Parents often do not know which aspects of the child’s

communication are important to report & which are not important

• Parents may either over-estimate or under-estimate their child’s abilities as they are unaware of developmental norms

Assessing the Pragmatic Ability of Children

• It is based on a organizational framework

• Communication skills are divided into 3 levels of analysis:– Communicative intentions– Presupposition– Social organization of discourse

Assessing the Pragmatic Ability of Children (Cont’d)

• Communicative intentions:

– Refers to the intended illocutionary acts which a child produces; such as• Requesting, naming, greeting and responding

– 2 aspects are investigated:A. The range of different illocutionary acts used &

understood by the child

B. The child’s ability to use & understand indirect as well as direct speech acts

Assessing the Pragmatic Ability of Children (Cont’d)

• Presupposition:• The usual definition within pragmatics involves inferences

or assumptions which are built into linguistic expressions– E.g. that if someone managed to do something, this

presupposes that he/she tried to do it

• In this Checklist, presupposition refers to the ability of children to make inferences about their conversational partner’s knowledge

• it is reflected in the content and form of their messages– i.e. the use of different styles for different

communicative partners

Assessing the Pragmatic Ability of Children (Cont’d)

• Social organization of discourse:– deals with the ability to maintain a dialogue over

several turns – includes conversational turn-taking, topic

initiation, maintenance, termination & shift

• weakness:– No guidelines as to how the results of the analysis

should be interpreted– It is based on behaviors observed in normally

developing children

An Approach to Developing Conversational Competence• It has a 2-level approach to data analysis1. Molecular level:– Involves a fine-grained analysis of the child’s behavior

– Focuses on topic

– Topic initiation is coded according to its• Subject, communicative intent, whether eye contact is used

– Turn-taking is coded according • to whether it is continuous or discontinuous

– Interaction is coded according to• dimension of control expressed by ,for e.g., interruptions & interrogatives

An Approach to Developing Conversational Competence (Cont’d)2. Molar analysis:– Global analysis

– It consist of a discourse skills checklist- sections of topic initiations & maintenance, use of eye contact, turn-taking, politeness, some non-verbal behaviors

– Includes observational points:- • Initiates new topics on a daily basis, talks mostly about

self, responds to questions, interrupts, uses commands, uses non-verbal head nods

An Approach to Developing Conversational Competence (Cont’d)

• Weaknesses:– Consists of categories which are largely self-

explanatory

– Results are interpreted by the observer according to their perceived appropriateness• i.e. interpretation depends on the observer’s intuitions

Towards a Profile of Conversational Ability• Its categories are designed according to a

developmental sequence

• The categories are:– Basic category is turn-taking

• It precedes the other pragmatic behaviors developmentally

– 2nd category is the ability to produce contingently related turns• i.e. ability to initiate a conversational exchange • or ability to produce an appropriate response

Towards a Profile of Conversational Ability (Cont’d)

– 3rd category introducing discourse topics & drawing on shared knowledge (presupposition)

• Weakness:– Lacks a set of guidelines for the interpretation of

results

The Pragmatic Protocol• Used with children aged 5 yrs or older

• covers 30 pragmatic aspects of language

• consists of 3 categories:– Verbal, paralinguistic, & non-verbal

• Verbal aspects include – Speech-act pair analysis i.e. speaker & listener roles– Variety of speech-acts– Topic management

• Selection, introduction, maintenance, & change

– Turn-taking

The Pragmatic Protocol (Cont’d)• Paralinguistic aspect

– Intelligibility & fluency

• Nonverbal aspect– Physical proximity, body posture,facial expressions

• Strength:– Comprehensiveness– Integrating verbal with paralinguistic & non-verbal behaviors– Each item is clearly defined

• Weakness:– No explanation of how the different levels relate to one another– E,g. does a problem in topic maintenance affect turn taking?

Analysis of Language-Impaired Children’s Conversation (ALICC)

• It consists of 2 parts:1. a quantitative analysis of aspects of children’s

conversational abilities2. a detailed analysis of inappropriate language use

• Its aspects are;– Exchange structure– Turn-taking– Repairs– Cohesion

Analysis of Language-Impaired Children’s Conversation (Cont’d)• Exchange structure:

– different ways of initiating & responding in conversational sequences

• Turn-taking:– Identification of gaps & turn-taking violations (e.g. interruptions)

• Repairs: – Responses to requests for clarification– the production of clarification requests– Corrections of the other person’s utterances– Self-repairs

• Cohesion:– Use of pronouns

Analysis of Language-Impaired Children’s Conversation (Cont’d)

• Subcategories of inappropriate analysis:– Expressive problems in syntax/semantics

– Failure to comprehend literal meaning

– Pragmatic problems 1: violation of exchange structure• Failure to obey conversational sequencing rules• i.e. not responding or ignoring other person’s initiation

& continuing with an unrelated structure

Analysis of Language-Impaired Children’s Conversation (Cont’d)

– Pragmatic problems 2: failure to use context in comprehension• Child responds to literal meaning of a partner’s

utterance but misses its intended meaning

– Pragmatic problems 3: too little information provided to partner

– Pragmatic problems 4: too much information provided to partner

Analysis of Language-Impaired Children’s Conversation (Cont’d)

– Unusually or socially inappropriate content or style

• Changing the topic inappropriately

• Failing to mark change in topic

• Using stereotyped language

• Making socially inappropriate remarks

– Other problems:

• Child lacks knowledge or experience that is required for an adequate

response

• Strength:

– The different types of pragmatic disability is addressed to a much

greater extent than other checklists

Bristol Language Development Scales (BLADES) :

• Involves the analysis of the functions of utterances

• Functions:– E.g. to exchange information (Representative function)– Express feelings & attitudes or ask about them (expressive function)

• Each of these functions is subdivided into subfunctions

• Strength:– Because utterances are analyzed at all 3 levels-pragmatics, semantics, syntax, it

is possible to determine links between a child’s difficulties at these different levels

• Weakness: – The problem of identifying what function a particular utterance might have –

multiple coding– E.g. I am going out now because it is raining intend & give explanation

Some Problems with Checklists for Pragmatics :

• the main differences between the checklists are in the emphasis and grouping of items

• The categories may not be the most appropriate for pinpointing the types of problem which arise for language impaired children

– language-impaired children experience specific hurdles with certain aspects of language which are not specific hurdles for the normally-developing children

– E.g. language-impaired children show marked problems with initiating conversations which are above and beyond what would be expected from normal controls of the same MLU

Some Problems with Checklists for Pragmatics (Cont’d)

• Few of these checklists have been tested extensively with language-impaired subjects

• Their implementation (counting the frequencies of behaviors)– The frequency, presence, or absence of a behavior may not be

the most important factor

• Scoring method how judgments on appropriateness are made

– certain behaviors may appear inappropriate yet they may not have any adverse effect on the interaction

Standardized tests:• The Test of Pragmatic Skills

• The Pragmatics Screening Test

The Test of Pragmatic Skills:

• Is intended for children suspected of having impairment in the appropriate use of conversational intentions or with a limited range of such intentions

• The focus is on A. the child’s usage of illocutionary acts such as

requesting information, requesting action, refusing and denying;

B. and on their ability to choose an appropriate act in different communicative contexts

The Test of Pragmatic Skills (Cont’d)• The approach is to elicit

1. appropriate communicative intentions in 4 tasks:

• playing with puppets• playing with a pencil and a sheet of paper• playing with telephones• playing with blocks

2. a variety of illocutionary acts from the child including greeting, answering, informing, and naming through presenting a series of probes

The Test of Pragmatic Skills (Cont’d)• E.g. of probes:– Let’s talk! Hi!– How are you today?– Tell me what your favorite TV show is.– I’ve never watched that show. Tell me about it.

• The child’s response is scored on a six point scale

• Scoring:– score on all 4 tasks is calculated, then divided by 4

to determine the child’s Percentile Rank

The Test of Pragmatic Skills (Cont’d)• weaknesses:– It deals only with communicative intentions i.e.

covers a restricted set of conversational behaviours

– Scores from this tests does not say a lot about child’s pragmatic abilities; e.g. turn-taking, topic maintenance, topic change

The Pragmatics Screening Test:• It is intended for initially screening pragmatic abilities for children

aged between 3.6 and 8.6

• It involves eliciting illocutionary acts, politeness devices, a narrative structure from the child and is concerned with the ability to

A. take the listener’s perspective and B. to process and initiate conversational discourse and narratives

• The elicitation procedures are presented as game-like activities

• It consists of the following items:– Pretest Training– Absurd Requests– Ghost Trick– Referential Communication Task

The Pragmatics Screening Test (Cont’d)• Procedure:

• Child’s teacher completes the Pragmatics Teacher Rating Scale before beginning the test

– The rating is on dimensions such as • Verbally interactive• Cooperative • Attentive• Follows directions• Confident

– This helps identifying quiet or shy children thus indicating discourse at appropriate points so they will not be disadvantaged

The Pragmatics Screening Test (Cont’d)• Pretest:• Aims:

– To prepare child for humorous and informal nature of tasks– Ascertain child’s suitability– to elicit uninhibited responses

• Task:– To present some incongruities

• E.g. tester points to a picture of a dog; says “I will tell you a story about this picture”; “There was once a little cat”

• Responses:– Any response is acceptable verbal/non-verbal– If does not respond test is discontinued

The Pragmatics Screening Test (Cont’d)• Absurd Requests:• Aim:

– To see which response type(s) the child gives such as;• Statement of fact, denial, request for information or clarification, no

response

• Task: – Include a teddy bear without arms and a pair of scissors taped

together– Child is asked to do things which are impossible such as;

• “show me his hand”; “cut the paper”

• Responses:– Response types mentioned above is coded – Tester enters the response codes on a standardized record form ,

then sent off for analysis by the publishers

The Pragmatics Screening Test (Cont’d)• Ghost Trick:• Aim:

– To elicit a series of responses from the child

• Task:– Involves a small trick with a handkerchief– Promising child a sticker, but keeps it out of reach attempting to elicit a

response politeness markers – Telling a short ghost story and asks the child to retell the story

• Responses:– a series of responses– politeness markers– Child’s story is scored according to whether it contains the basic

elements of the narrative:• Beginning, goal, outcome, and ending

The Pragmatics Screening Test (Cont’d)• Referential Communication Task:• Aim:

– To elicit various pragmatic categories from the child

• Task:– Child has to construct a face from a set of pieces and to instruct the tester, who is

separated by a screen, how to construct the same face from an identical set of pieces

– The tester constructs the wrong face and also rephrases the child’s subsequent instructions inappropriately;• E.g. if child says “ Put the nose in the middle” examiner might say “ Put the mouth in the

middle”

– Inappropriate request “ Take the mouth and put it next to the cat”, but there is no cat

• Responses:– Possible responses:

• Request for action “Do you want me to do it for you?”• Denial• Revision of the original instruction “No, put the nose in the middle”• Clarification request

The Pragmatics Screening Test (Cont’d)• Strengths:

– The illocutionary act categories are presented more than once across the tasks which gives the child several opportunities to produce the desired response

– Is the attempt to elicit some of those illocutionary act types, such as denials- clarification requests, which regularly occur in spontaneous discourse but difficult to elicit in test situations

– Deals with a wider range of illocutionary act types compared to The test of Pragmatic Skills

• Weakness:– The range of pragmatic categories is resticted