Preschool Language Scale

Fourth Edition
Sandra R. Gomes
Caldwell College

Assessment Needs

The limitations of preschool

assessments have been well
documented (McCauley, 2001).
Therefore, reliable and valid
assessments are needed.

Summary of Presentation
Background of Preschool Language
Scale (PLS)
Overview of PLS-4
Test Content & Administration
How to score PLS-4
Research supporting the effectiveness of
the PLS-4

Pros and Cons

Background of Preschool
Language Scale (PLS)
Developed by Irla Zimmerman, Violette
Steiner, and Roberta Pond.
Earlier editions
PLS - Originally developed in 1969 to measure
language development of young children
PLS-R - Clearer administration & simplified scoring
system (1979)
PLS-3 - normative data used to develop standard
scores & percentile ranks; reliability & validity
information; additional test tasks & supplementary test
information (1992)

Current edition
PLS-4 -(2002)

Overview of PLS-4
Purpose
Standardized & norm referenced
evaluation tool used to assess receptive
& expressive language skills
Determines whether deficiencies are
primarily receptive or expressive in
nature
Assesses behaviors considered to be
language precursors

Age range
Birth through 6 years, 11 months

Overview of PLS-4
Test Content
Core Subscales
Supplemental Assessments
Scores
Norm referenced test scores
Qualified Users

Overview of PLS-4
Standardization Data
PLS-4 is standardized
Sample included 1564 children
39.1% of this sample consists of ethnic minorities

Spanish edition also available with

separate norms
Task Analysis Checklist
Ages 2 days to 6 years 11 months
Within each age level, approximately 50% of the
sample was male and 50% was female.

Test Content
Auditory Comprehension
1. To evaluate how much language a child
understands 2. Test tasks on this subscale
are considered important precursors for
language development for infants and
toddlers
Morphology
Attention
Syntax
Play
Integrative language
Gesture
Phonological
Vocabulary
awareness

Concepts

Video Examples

QuickTime and a
H.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Test Content
Expressive Communication

1. Used to determine how well a child communicates

with others.

Vocal development
Gesture
Social
communication
Vocabulary
Concepts

Morphology
Syntax
Integrative language
Phonological
awareness

Video Examples

QuickTime and a
H.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Test Content
Supplemental
Assessments
Language Sample Articulation
Checklist
Screener

Caregiver
Questionnaire

Caregiver Questionnaire
What Your Child Understands
1.

Does your child momentarily look at a person who is

talking to him or her? If yes, who does your child look at?

2.

Does your child look at you for more than 2 seconds? If

yes, describe a situation when your child does this.

3.

Does your child respond to words like stop or wait?

4.

Does your child put toys in his or her mouth?

5.

Does your child understand words like in, off, or out

of?

Administration of PLS-4
Examiners Manual
Administration, scoring, & interpretation
procedures

Picture Manual
Contains picture stimuli

Record Form
Abbreviated directions for administering,
recording, & scoring test items

Manipulatives
Used to facilitate interactions with the child

Required Manipulatives
SCAN PAGE

Administration of PLS-4
Beginning the test session
Test environment
Determine chronological age

Determine starting point

Basic information about his or her language
Start at least a year prior to childs age

Task Administration
Can start with either subscale
Generally takes 25-40 minutes, depending on age of
the child and communication skills

Practice Tasks
Included for a number of items on the (AC) and (EC)
subscales

Administration of PLS-4
Modifying Administration for special
populations
Children with severe developmental delays
Children with severe physical/ hearing/ visual
impairments
Children who communicate using sign language
Children with autism

Accommodations
Use as criterion referenced information only

Scoring PLS-4
Scores Reported
PLS-4 provides age-based
Standard scores
Percentile ranks
Age equivalents

Scoring Codes
(E)- Elicited (S) - Spontaneous (C ) - Caregiver

Basal and Ceiling Rules

Basal achieved when child has passed 3 consecutive
numbered tasks (Scores of 1 marked in 3 consecutive
boxes)
Ceiling is achieved when the child has earned a score
of 0 on 7 consecutive numbered tasks

Example of correct &

incorrect ceiling

Practice

QuickTime and a
H.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Computing Scores
Refer to page 115
Refer to page 117 & 118

Research Supporting
Effectiveness
Restrepo et al. (2001)
This study evaluated the validity of
the Spanish edition of the PLS-3
Validity is of increasing importance
Number of Hispanic children increases in
schools each year; therefore, the need for
reliable, valid measures for this population
becomes more urgent (Restrepo et al., 2001).

Restrepo et al. (2001)

Continued
Participants
37 children (18 boys & 19 girls)
Mean age of 5 years 6 months
All children were bilingual

Compared performances of the same participants

on the English and Spanish version of the PLS-3
Concluded that the test was inadequate because it
was based on English rather than Spanish Language
development data.

Research Supporting
Effectiveness
Qi et al. (2003)
Study examined the performance of 701 low-income
African American preschoolers (36 to 52 months old)
On average, African American children performed about 1
SD below the expected means for their ages on both
subscales
Independent sample t tests showed no significant
differences between African American children & a
comparison sample of 50 European American children.
6 items appeared to be particularly difficult for African
American sample
Findings suggest that the PLS-3 is generally an
informative language test for African American
preschoolers.

Research Supporting
Effectiveness
Zimmerman et al. (2005)
PLS-3 & PLS-4 administered to the same
children, similar mean and SDs were found
which supported the PLS-4 content.
PLS-4 differentiated between 44 children
identified with autism spectrum disorders
and 44 typically developing children.
Differences ranged from 36-39 standard
score points.

Zimmerman et al. (2005)

Continued
Nonverbal children with autism demonstrated
greatest lags on language tasks targeting
concepts & social communication.
Children who were verbal demonstrated
significant difficulties on morphology, syntax,
social communication & integrated language
skills.
In summary, PLS-4 proved to be sensitive to
differences in language abilities for children with
a variety of diagnoses, including developmental
and language delays, autism, & hearing
impairment.

Pros of Assessment Tool

Test covers a wide range of
language issues
Child friendly
Allows for repeated
administration over the
childs development
Used extensively by
researchers in a broad
variety of areas
Enables clinicians to gain
insight into a childs
underlying deficits
Administration time is fairly
brief

Reliable and valid

Useful tool for evaluating
children with special
needs
Easy to score

Cons of Assessment Tool

Does not go into great

depth
Not meant to be used
alone to diagnose a
language deficit
Unable to make
modifications
Administration of
assessment tool

Summary
Overall, PLS-4 is a well- designed and carefully
developed instrument, meeting a standard of
quality substantially above that of most other
commercial tests. A user can be quite confident
of the accuracy of scores and appropriateness of
using PLS-4 scores as indicators of language skills
of preschool children. (Zimmerman et. al, 2005)
It is a useful diagnostic and research tool that can
be used to identify current comprehension and
expressive language skills & can be used to
measure changes in language skills over time.

References
McCauley, R. (2001). Assessment of language disorders in
children. Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.
Qi, C. H., Kaiser, A. P., Milan, S. E., Yzquierdo, Z., & Hancock, T. B.,
(2003). The performance of Low-Income, African American
Children on the Preschool Language Scale-3. Journal of
Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 576-590.
Restrepo, M., & Silverman, S. W., (2001). Validity of the Spanish
preschool language scale-3 for use with bilingual children.
American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 10, 382-393.
Zimmerman, I. L., & Castilleja, N. F., (2005). The role of language
scale for infant and preschool assessment. Mental Retardation
and Developmental Disabilities, 11, 238-246.
Zimmerman, I. L., Steiner, V. G., & Pond R. E., (2002). Preschool
Language Scale, 4th edition. San Antonio, TX: The
Psychological Corporation.