For creation of the assessments in SLP Toolkit (both Present Level Assessments and criterion referenced tests), a compilation of resources were used when selecting stimulus items including:
  • review of developmental norms
  • review of research (articles and textbooks)
  • analysis of expectations for academic skill acquisition
  • analysis of communication development
  • analysis of linguistic individualism that occurs as children progress past the age of available research on developmental norms
Please note that criteria is always set by the SLP, not the test or the program.
Some resources that were used during the creation of SLP Toolkit include but are not limited to:
  • Language Development: An Introduction, by R.E. Owens, Jr., 2008 edition, p. 284-285; Acquisition of Sentence Forms Within Brown's Stages of Development
  • Bowen, C. (1998). Ages and Stages Summary: Language Development 0-5 years.
  • American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2011). Your child's communication development: Kindergarten through fifth grade. Available from http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/kindergarten.htm
  • LinguiSystems. (2009). Guide to communication milestones. http://www.linguisystems.com/index/home
  • Gard, A., Gilman, L., & Gorman, J. (2011). Speech and language development chart (2nd ed.) ProEd: Austin, TX.
  • Common Core State Standards
  • Paul, Rhea. Language Disorders from Infancy through Adolescence: Assessment and Intervention. St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier, 2007. Print.
  • Marzano, Robert J., and Debra J. Pickering. Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual. Baltimore: ASCD, 2010. Print.
  • Beck, Isabel L., Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. New York: Guilford, 2013. Print.
In addition, SLP Toolkit looked at various school districts' lists of recommended Tier 2 vocabulary for both specific grade levels and grade bands from across the country, as well as literature used in various grade levels and curriculum used for systematic English Language Arts instruction.  These materials were analyzed through a lens of our knowledge as SLPs of vocabulary expectations for those grade levels from a developmental and academic perspective as well as through the lens that Marzano and Beck discuss when selecting appropriate vocabulary words for instruction.