Connor was given the TOPL as well
That's a good point. I've found that students can sometimes demonstrate a knowledge of what to do in different social situations, but that may be a far cry from how they actually function.
Adam was given the TOPL and because of the results he is finally in Speech Therapy. Just a small thought:
Unfortunately the observation data is somewhat subjective. We were given a list of my son's friends that included mainly classmates who bully him. We are also told that he had good eye contact but I saw him carry out a whole conversation w/o looking at the SLP until she grabbed him under the chin and turned him towards her (I wish I had my cell phone camera).
I don't mean to dump on you, but I do want to mention to parents that the SLP can skew the observations if he/she desires to do so, and there is not a lot you, as a parent, can do since no one believes the parents.
In my experience, my HFA kid was transitioned to the mainstream and left w/o support because he can score well on a few standardized tests.
Here is a short article called "Can Social Pragmatic Skills Be Tested?"
http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/irca/communication/socialpragmat ic.html
It mentions the TOPL, but the problem is that it is non-emotional and decontextualized. Therefore pragmatics are often tested through observations in situations. The evaluator might set up a situation which designed to be frustrating for the child and see if the child could still respond appropriately more than once (a child with autism often can't handle more than taking one turn in a conversation).
Can anyone tell me what type of testing can be used to determine if a child has pragmatic language? The school is wanting to test my son, but i want to make sure that they perform the correct test... thanks!
http://lshss.asha.org/cgi/content/abstract/36/1/62
This is the only coherent link I could really find though I will search for more.
I find it interesting when they use the phrase "pragmatic use of language." This was one of the key phrases used with my son, but it seems to have been used interchangeably with "dynamic exchange." If I were to look at these two phrases I would think them diametrically opposed, but I guess they are not in the vernacular of the spectrum.
They will probably be using methods to see how your son does with back and forth conversations, answering questions, abstracts, and perhaps reading a paragraph and having a conversation about it.
I am simply hazarding a guess though.
I hope this is a good start for you and best of luck!
The test they used with Adam was Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4: Pragmatics profile.
Karrie
My daughter had an evaluation of her pragmatic language fairly recently. The test is age-normed and called the "TOPL" which stands for "Test of Pragmatic Language". I hope to use it as a springboard to get more speech therapy, perhaps not at the school since they don't view it as a problem, but maybe through private insurance.
The TOPL is detailed a little in the link I provided.