Deep Dive into Language Sample Analysis Using SLAM: Identifying Sentences Structures and Underlying Markers of Cohesion and Social/Pragmatics
The course focuses on clinician skill-building on how to analyze language samples to identify complexity of sentence structures as well as the underlying markers of cohesion and social/pragmatics. Sentence analysis focuses on identifying verbs, independent clauses and dependent clauses and the type of dependent clause. The underlying markers include temporal, relational, and causal cohesion and the social/pragmatic markers of theory of mind, taking perspective, and false beliefs. Making meaningful predictions is another underlying marker that can fall under either cohesion or social/pragmatics depending on its function in the sentence. The 40-question multiple-choice assessment requires analysis of sentences elicited through the School-Age Language Assessment Measures (SLAM; Crowley & Baigorri, 2015). Completion of the assessment with at least 80 percent correct leads to a certificate of completion.