The Language Access Profile Tool (Hall & De Anda, 2022)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the Language Access Profile Tool (LAPT) and its psychometric properties with the aim of evaluating its suitability as an alternative to the deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) Language Exposure Assessment Tool (D-LEAT) in clinical practice with DHH children age 12 years and younger.

Method: We administered both the LAPT and D-LEAT to the caregivers of 105 DHH children 12 years old and younger from across the United States, 40% of whom were interviewed again after a delay of at least 1 month. Each interview resulted in a child-specific estimate of their cumulative experience with language input, expressed as a proportion divided across eight categories.

Results: Participants in the sample reported experience with all eight input categories, but four categories were common and four were rare. Estimates for all input categories were consistent at both initial and follow-up interviews. Estimates for each input category were also strongly correlated with the corresponding estimates from the D-LEAT, although correlations for the rare categories should be interpreted cautiously.

Conclusions: The LAPT demonstrates sufficient test–retest reliability and convergent validity to be a useful and more user-friendly alternative to the D-LEAT. We provide recommendations for how the LAPT and the D-LEAT can be best used in their current form.

Supplemental Material S1. Histograms for each input category. 

Supplemental Material S2. Individual language access profiles of each child in the data set.

Supplemental Material S3. This figure plots the analogous correlation for the minor categories.

Supplemental Material S4. This figure plots the analogous correlation for the minor categories, as in Supplemental Material S3, but additionally indicates naturally occurring groups of children who have had similar overall experiences with language input, as identified through hierarchical cluster analysis (limited access, English, ASL, and sign-supported speech). 

Supplemental Material S5. This figure plots the analogous correlation for the minor categories, as in Supplemental Material S3, but additionally indicates naturally occurring groups of children who have had similar overall experiences with language input, as identified through hierarchical cluster analysis (manually coded English, cued speech, other spoken language, and other/unknown). 

Supplemental Material S6. This figure plots plots the analogous correlation for the minor input categories. 

Supplemental Material S7. This figure plots plots the analogous correlation for the minor input categories, as in Supplemental Material S6, grouped by cluster (limited access, English, ASL, and sign-supported speech). 

Supplemental Material S8. This figure plots plots the analogous correlation for the minor input categories, as in Supplemental Material S6, grouped by cluster (manually coded English, cued speech, other spoken language, and other/unknown).

Hall, M. L., & De Anda, S. (2022). Estimating early language input in deaf and hard of hearing children with the Language Access Profile Tool. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_AJSLP-21-00222