TOAL-3

Authors

• Donald D. Hammill Virginia L. Brown Stephen C. Larsen J. Lee Wiederholt
• Pro-ed publishing, Copyright 1994

Basic Info

• Standardized measure
• ages 12;0-24;11
• assesses linguistic aspects of listening, speaking, reading, and writing
• Spoken and written language
• Time: about 1-3 hours, average time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Subtests

• Listening/Vocabulary (LV)
• Listening/Grammar (LG)
• Speaking/Vocabulary (SV)
• Speaking/Grammar (SG
• Reading/Vocabulary (RV)
• Reading/Grammar (RG)
• Writing/Vocabulary (WV)
• Writing/Grammar (WG)

The "who" and the "what"

• Examiners can be anyone "competent in administration of tests in education, language and psychology"
• Examiners manual, answer booklet, profile/examiner record form, test booklet

Breaks in Standardization

• Accepetable breaks? Yes! Nonreaders can be excused from taking parts of the test that require reading, subtests that involve spoken language aren't administered to people who are deaf or do not speak English.
• Means of responding may be modified. ex: a teen who has difficulty writing an "X" on certain subtests may be allowed to point to their answers instead

Basal/Ceiling Guidelines

• Basal: for all subtests- examinee correctly answers five items in a row
• Ceiling is reaching when three answers in any five items have been answered incorrectly.

Scores obtained

• Raw Scores
• subtest standard scores
• percentiles
• composite quotients

Reliability

• Reliability measures found that the TOAL-3 has the highest level of reliability for it's content, student performances are consistent over time, and test scorers judged the students performances almost identically (no significant scorer differences)
• So...yes, it's reliable! :)

Validity

• Content validity: the rationale for selecting subtest content and formats
• Test formats used to measure the aspects of language assessed on the TOAL-3 were derived from existing, well-known and widely accepted language assessments.
• If the authors felt that no suitable existing test formats were found, new ones were developed

Case Study

Judy is a healthy 15 year old female who is a freshman at Franklin Lakes High School. Her hobbies include playing soccer and baking. Her English teacher, Mrs. Apple, has expressed concerns about her academic performance so far this school year. She stated that Judy has displayed difficulty completing tasks that require her to answer comprehension questions in relation to their assigned readings. Additionally, Judy's mother reported that Judy is so shy that she rarely speaks, even at home.

Rationale

I believe that Mrs. Apple’s concerns about Judy’s reading comprehension abilities, as well as Judy’s mother’s worries about her lack of expressive language warrant the complete administration of the TOAL-3. Because Judy is 15 years old and in good health, she is within the appropriate age range to receive administration of the TOAL-3 and should not have any trouble completing the required tasks of the eight subtests. Upon completion of the TOAL-3, a better picture of Judy’s overall language abilities will be available, and further language assessment or treatment, if needed, can be discussed

Impressions

What do I think?

• Thorough
• Concise, easy to follow
• A bit boring, all black and white!
• Some of the stimulus items are outdated/confusing. For example: Teens now may not know what a payphone is!
• Seemingly easy administration
• Examiner record form has space to note client behaviors- this is helpful
• I would use this in my clinical practice, it looks at many aspects of language in one assessment

At an IEP Meeting...

The TOAL-3 is a language assessment for adolescents and adults, ages 12-24:11. Eight subtests are administered to evaluate the areas of grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Using the scores obtained from these eight subtests, conclusions can be drawn in regards to ten aspects of the student’s language. These ten areas include listening, speaking, reading, writing, spoken language, written language, vocabulary, grammar, receptive language, and expressive language...

As you can see, administration of the TOAL-3 can reveal an immense amount of information in regard to the language abilities of a student in a short amount of time. This instrument can be used to identify those who are considered to be behind their peers in measures of language and may qualify/benefit from intervention, to determine areas of relative strengths and weaknesses, and to document progress throughout intervention.

Sample Administration

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