Recording Children's Language Use and Communicative Behaviours

The form on the following page makes use of the same language categories and general procedures as the Sample Checklist for Observing Children's Social Communication (p. 25) but involves recording the child's speech and describing her/his behaviours.

In addition to getting a general sense of who is using language regularly and/or appropriately for the particular situation, teachers who use this assessment will also become more aware of their students' common sentence patterns and vocabularies. This information is useful for designing instructional tasks such as Repeat my Sentence (see page 28) and for planning what levels of support are required in order for individual children to benefit from language arts activities that involve the whole class.

Procedures

1. Record the actual language the child used. When a child found ways other than speech to fulfill a need or "want", (such as pointing, taking something away from another child, physical aggression, etc.), briefly describe these behaviours as well.
2. Refer to the chart on page 23 for examples of language use in each category and to the Instructional Implications (p. 24) for strategies that will support children's development in this area.

Sample Form for Recording Children's Language Use and Communicative Behaviours