Preschool Language Scales

The Preschool Language Scales, fifth edition, (PLS-5) is a popular assessment tool among speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who work with children.

Designed for clients from birth through age seven, the Preschool Language Scales and Preschool Language Scale scoring method cover all the bases. SLPs can use the Preschool Language Scales-5 and its scores to assess expressive and receptive language, early play behaviors, early literacy development, and articulation.

Depending on their clients’ needs, SLPs can pick and choose subtests and screeners from the PLS-5. The PLS-5 Complete Kit includes manipulatives that pair with test administration. It is available in both English and Spanish, including a dual administration option for bilingual clients.

You may be wondering, How can you use the Preschool Language Scales with your clients? What are the subscales of the PSL-5? or, How do you interpret the results in your Preschool Language Scale scoring?

In this article, we’ll break down how speech therapists can use the PLS-5 to screen for and assess early childhood communication skills.

What is the Preschool Language Scales?

According to its publisher, Pearson, the Preschool Language Scales helps clinicians identify which early speech and language skills a child has acquired and where there may be gaps in a child’s developmental language skills.

The Preschool Language Scales age range includes infants to 7 years, 11 months.

As a norm-referenced language assessment, the PLS-5 can give SLPs powerful data. It is designed to pinpoint language delays and disorders in young clients, and appropriate to administer to those with moderate to severe delays.

The Preschool Language Scales includes several supplemental tests, like an articulation screener, language sample, and home communication questionnaire.

It takes between 30 to 60 minutes to administer the full assessment.

After test administration, speech-language therapists can expect to have a better understanding of a child’s verbal and nonverbal developmental language skills.

The Preschool Language Scales is known for its interactive format. The Complete Kit, with manipulatives, includes accessories like wind-up toys, a squeaky duck, crayons, and a plastic bear.

While it may look like fun and games, administering the PLS-5 is complex work. Speech-language pathologists are assessing a wide range of skills—from morphology to vocal development—as they prompt the child with various toys and picture stimuli.

Since the Preschool Language Scale scoring is inclusive of very young clients (even infants), caregiver input is elicited when needed to gather information about the child’s communication skills at home.

What does the Preschool Language Scale measure?

The Preschool Language Scales test measures a variety of early developing communication skills, including:

• Feeding
• Attention to environment and people
• Play
• Gesture
• Social/interpersonal communication
• Vocal development
• Articulation
• Syntax
• Morphology
• Vocabulary
• Basic concepts
• Stuttering

While the assessment is divided into a receptive and expressive portion, the PLS-5 measures a wide range of dynamic communication abilities.

That means integrative language skills like inferencing and analogies are also part of the test protocol.

The Preschool Language Scales is appropriate to use with clients functioning at a pre-linguistic level. It can also be utilized in cases where the child only communicates in one or two word phrases or demonstrates global language delays.

Children who have limited social interaction skills and exhibit difficulties participating in a mainstream classroom environment may also be tested using the PLS-5.

As a comprehensive speech and language assessment, it is intended to measure all aspects of communication in young clients.

What are the subscales of the PLS-5?

The PLS-5 is divided into two subscales: Auditory Comprehension and Expressive Communication.

The Auditory Comprehension subscale covers all aspects of receptive language.

It includes sections on attention to people and environment, play, gesture, vocal development, social communication, integrative language skills, and emergent literacy skills.

The Auditory Comprehension subscale also features a semantics category, which covers vocabulary, qualitative and quantitative concepts, time/sequence concepts, and spatial concepts.

In order to receive “correct” responses for accurate Preschool Language Scales scoring, the child must follow directions appropriately—for example, giving the toy bear or a cup to the clinician when asked.

The PLS-5 Auditory Comprehension subscale assesses a child’s language structure skills. Test items gauge the client’s understanding of morphology and syntax.

All of the same aspects of language are tested within the Expressive Communication subscale. However, in order to receive credit for answering test items correctly on the Expressive Communication portion of the assessment, the child must indicate their response using expressive language.

For instance, when shown a picture stimulus, the child must correctly state its name aloud (e.g., “baby” or “spoon”).

While the Auditory Comprehension subscale tests the client’s fund of language knowledge, the Expressive Communication subscale requires the child to use that knowledge to provide the appropriate language output in a variety of contexts.

How to interpret Preschool Language Scale scoring

Preschool Language Scale scoring involves converting raw scores into standard scores and percentile ranks. The Auditory Comprehension and Expressive Communication subscales receive individual raw scores, standard scores, and percentile ranks.

The client’s standard scores from these separate subscales are then calculated into one total language score, which gives a sense of the child’s general communication abilities.

The Preschool Language Scales standard scores are based on a bell curve, where a standard score of 100 is the mean. During the Preschool Language Scale scoring, a client who receives a standard score of 100 on either subscale or as a total language score falls within the average range, relative to age-based norms.

Since the standard deviation of the test is 15 points, a standard score below 85 on any PLS-5 subscale falls below average.

SLPs can identify deficits in receptive language by examining a child’s Auditory Comprehension standard score. Likewise, they can evaluate a child’s expressive language skills by looking at the Expressive Communication subscale.

To get a bigger picture glimpse of a client’s comprehensive language abilities, the total language score is a useful data point.

But what if there’s a discrepancy between the Auditory Comprehension and Expressive Communication scores? Some children possess strong receptive language skills, but lack equivalent expressive language abilities. The reverse can also be true.

The PLS-5 scoring form contains a discrepancy comparison space where clinicians can mark down both subscale scores and calculate whether the difference is statistically significant.

This tool provides extra insight when clients present with significant strengths and weaknesses across multiple language domains.

By using the Preschool Language Scales, speech-language therapists can gather critical data about young clients’ communication skills, ensuring treatment addresses their greatest needs.

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