How do you use the baseline assessment?

  • Show one picture at a time to the child, starting with Picture 1 from Sentence Type A and working your way through them.
  • When you show the picture to the child, use the Scoring Form to write down the child’s response. There is a column next to the child’s response called ‘Number /type of target elements achieved’, this is where you will score the child. You DO NOT score on the number of words a child has said. Your score is based on how many target elements the child has said. For example, if the child said “girl baking cookies”, this would elicit a score of 3 as the child has included WHO (1), DOING (2) and WHAT (3). If the child said “the girl is baking”, this would elicit a score of 2 as even though the child has included more words and the sentence is grammatically correct, they have only used WHO and DOING.
  • Ask the child to tell you the full sentence again at the end of each picture as they may have given you snippets depending on your prompting/their abilities e.g. CHILD: eating cookie YOU: who? The girl? CHILD: boy YOU: you told me ‘the boy is eating the cookie’ – can you tell me it again?
  • If your child is able to give a complete sentence structure on the first attempt or even after prompting to get the complete sentence structure you can then go on the use the Additional Prompting Sheet. This may be used when a child is including all target elements e.g. “baby crying bed” (WHO DOING WHERE) – you could then use a prompting question to elicit an additional target element e.g. CLOUD – is the baby crying in the big bed or the small bed?

Specific Sentence Type Information:

  • Sentence Type D – WHO DOING WHAT Who TO
    The child may put the ‘who TO’ before or after the WHAT so both structures need to be shown as correct e.g. the girl is giving a present to the man OR the girl is giving the man a present. If this is a structure you are teaching to a child, you should always start with WHO + DOING + WHAT + who TO e.g. the girl is giving a present to the man, the boy is kicking the ball to the girl.