A standardized parent-report questionnaire to assess pragmatic language development in children 18 to 47 months of age

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Author: Dr. Daniela O'Neill
Age range covered: 18-47 months with norms (language-age equivalent scores possible beyond 47 months)
Who completes it: Parent or Primary Caregiver; professionals score
Time to complete: Parents/Primary Caregiver: 20-30 min.
Areas covered: 14 subscales assess a child's communication in wide range of settings and for broad variety [Read More] of functions including, for example, requesting help, sharing focus of attention, asking and commenting about things and people; guiding interactions with other people; sharing humour; talking about language and words; adapting communication to perspectives of other people; and building longer sentences and stories. « less
Scoring: Online Version: instantaneous; Hardcopy: 5-10 minutes with automated scoring calculator
Scores: Percentile ranks by 1-month age bands
Norms: Based on over 3500 children
Child Report: Displays conversion of scores to percentile scores for all subscales in numerical and graph format. See example. If child beyond 47 month norms, language age equivalent scores reported. [See example LUI Child Report]
Year of Publication: 2009

The LUI is included among a set of recommended measures for evaluating the efficacy of interventions that target spoken language acquisition in children with autism spectrum disorders by a panel of experts convened by the NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (Tager-Flusberg et al., 2009, Journal of Speech, Language, & Hearing Research). Independent recommendations and research studies validating the LUI are continuing to grow!  -   See our up-to-date list at LUI Research - Publications

LUI Users are at Institutions & Organizations Worldwide!

What LUI Users are Saying

“Dear Dr. O'Neill,
I just couldn't resist and had to write to you about how happy I am with the LUI. Even though I've just purchased it and only used it on one client, the LUI completely substantiated the client's social ...[Read More] pragmatic deficits (it is a very verbal 3 year old male diagnosed with ASD). Interestingly this was a client who scored within average limits on the CELF-P2, but had severe deficits in the area of language use.

This little guy's parents contacted me for a second opinion after a preschool based SLP assessment indicated that his pragmatic abilities were within normal limits. During my evaluation I was able to note and record numerous social pragmatic deficits informally, but it was even better when I was able to use a standardized tool (LUI) to substantiate my findings.

While I always maintained that school aged children can score WNL on comprehensive language tests (e.g., CELF-4) and still display profound deficits in the area of social pragmatic functioning, up until I've used your test I was not able to convince colleagues that the same is true of significantly younger children as well. Now I will be able to accomplish the above more easily.

Thank you so much again Regards,”
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Tatyana E.
Speech-Language Pathologist, New Jersey, USA

“I‘m an SLP working with many children with ASD and I just wanted to say thank you for developing this tool. It’s made it much easier to assess children who are verbal and to give functional feedback and suggestions to families and behavioural intervention teams.”

Lisa T.
Speech-Language Pathologist, British Columbia, Canada

“It's STANDARDIZED so I can now obtain valuable parent input AND it meets a prong of the state eligibility criteria.” [Read More]

Donna Miazga
School-based Speech Pathologist (Wisconsin, USA), Badger State Speechy Blog

“For toddlers 18 -47 months of age, I highly recommend the Language Use Inventory (LUI)” [Read More]

Tatyana Elleseff
Speech Therapist, Rutgers University Behavioral Center and Smart Speech Therapy LLC, (New Jersey, USA)

“We are thrilled with the Language Use Inventory and to finally have a standardized way to measure pragmatic language skills!”

Jennifer S.
Speech Language Pathologist, Springfield Public Schools, Missouri

“This test is such a find for me! I'm just starting out in private practice and the ability to use a standardized test and not go bankrupt while I build up my client base, is such a blessing!”

Sabrina O.
Speech-Language Pathologist, Ontario, Canada

“This is such a wonderful tool to use with my early intervention/preschool clients with suspected pragmatic language difficulties.”

Elizabeth A.
Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist, Indianapolis, IN

“I just used this for the first time to assess a child for qualification into our preschool program. Easy parent question format, completed same day, and printed report is lovely! The company gave me five free assessments. Very nice. I am an SLP in KY.”

via Facebook
Apr. 2017

“I'm an SLP working in an Early Childhood Center. I ordered it because sometimes it's difficult to gather all the information we need on our little kiddos. Parents complete the questionnaire and it's quite lengthy. It will provide a "score" and give you some good ideas of where to start your intervention strategies.”

via Facebook
Feb. 2016, Farley KS

“I love using parent inventories for young ones. It provides not only the necessary info, but insights for the parents as to what to do next....because they are part of it. Parents are children's first teachers and have natural environment on their side!

via Facebook
Aug. 2017, Providence, RI