Language sampling protocols for eliciting text-level discourse

The identification of linguistic vulnerability in school-age students is likely to require collecting and analyzing samples of text-level discourse. Text-level discourse produced as part of narrative and expository tasks is more likely to reveal school-age children's most advanced language abilities and to evoke more communication breakdowns and production errors. This article briefly reviews the research literature establishing the need to sample text-level discourse and identifies several issues for clinicians to consider when constructing their own language sampling protocols. The article concludes with the description of two different protocols that could be used in school- and clinic-based settings, along with examples of how these protocols have been administered and analyzed for clinical purposes.