New Zealand Language Sampling Protocol and Photos

The New Zealand reference databases consist of conversational and personal narrative and story retelling samples from approximately 250 typically developing children, aged between 4;6 and 7;6 years. The children were randomly selected from schools in Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch (major urban areas in New Zealand) as well as secondary urban areas surrounding Christchurch. Approximately 80% of the participants were from the Auckland/Hamilton region to reflect New Zealand 's population density in these areas. Children with diagnosed disabilities were excluded from the sample. The schools reflected a range of socio-economic areas and English was the first language of all children included in the database. There was an even gender distribution. The ethnicity of the group comprised of the major ethnic groups. The procedures for collecting the language samples are described in the Westerveld & Gillon Language Sampling Protocol. The photos that were used to collect the personal narrative language samples are available for download. These databases are a result of the collaboration with Gail Gillon and Marleen Westerveld from the Department of Communication Disorders, University of Canterbury. We would like to thank speech-language therapists from Group Special Education in Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch and Canterbury districts in New Zealand who were involved in the collection of the language samples. We greatly appreciated the expertise of these speech-language therapists in the data collection process and their commitment to ensuring the success of the project. We are grateful to the New Zealand Ministry of Education for allowing the participation of Special Education speech-language therapists in the project. We also gratefully acknowledge financial assistance for the project from the University of Canterbury, SALT Software LLC, The Don Bevan Travel Scholarship, and the New Zealand Speech Language Therapists' Association.

Westerveld & Gillon Language Sampling Protocol.

Photos used to collect personal narratives

Note: Adobe Reader® is needed to view the language sampling protocol. The file containing the photos is a self-extracting zip file containing the eleven photos. Run this file and you are prompted to select the folder where you want the photos stored. Browse to select this folder and then select Unzip.

SALT Demo

Try SALT 2010 before you buy.

SALT Brochure

Request or download our product brochure.

SALT Databases

Review the reference databases available with SALT.

Case Study Examples

See how SALT can be used for assessment.

Adobe Reader

Download Adobe Reader®, which is needed to view the case studies and other documents.