Informal Pragmatic

Language Test

This test is for educational use only. All credit goes to Michelle Garcia
Winner. This test was developed from her book: Thinking About You
Thinking About Me. Michelle Garcia Winner, (2002). Thinking About YOU
Thinking About ME. Michelle Garcia Winner, Ca

Amy Rebai & Deb West

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Michelle Garcia Winner, Ca
Test Description/Purpose: When assessing students who may have
social cognitive deficits we realize that their inability to effectively use their
language can exist in spite of adequate to exceptional skills as measured
by standardized tests. The problem of using standardized tests exists
when the test itself does not fully capture the nature of the student's deficit.
It can be argued that for individuals with high language skills and social
cognitive deficits, standardized tests provide a very limited set of
information about a student's social cognitive functioning. The very nature
of standardized testing, which creates a strong task structure while
stripping away competing variables often experienced in the complex
environment of the classroom, may facilitate success for students who
crave structure to get through their day.

For these students, it is critical that we explore their use of language as an

entirely separate and valid domain of functioning. This Pragmatic
Language Assessment should provide the examiner with a descriptive
observation of a student's functional language use.

Purpose of the Rubber Chicken: Keep the rubber chicken on the

assessment table throughout the evaluation. It is there in large part to help
the student relax and suggest that using humor will be appropriate during
the evaluation. While this may sound a bit bizarre, our students have
difficulty making transitions to new environments and grow leery of all the
professionals who test them over time. The students are permitted to
fidget with the chicken as long as it does not become a distraction to the
student's attention.

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 Table of Contents

This kit contains the following items however you need to provide 3
personal photographs. Please refer to the Personal Photograph
Requirements sheet.

Items Included:

1. Rubber Chicken

2. Sequence Cards

3. Social Scenario Cards

Forms for Testing:

1. Student Profile Form

2. Student Interview Form

3. Personal Picture Explanation Form

4. Double Interview Form

5. Picture Sequence Task Form

6. Social Scenario Task Form

7. Teacher Questionnaire

Patterns of Responses to Test Items:

1. Student Profile Responses

2. Personal Picture Responses

3. Double Interview Responses

4. Picture Sequencing Responses

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 Personal Photograph Requirements

A. Show a clear picture of the faces in the photographs.

B. Have minimal visual clutter in the picture so that the student can
focus on the people and not on objects that can easily distract from
the people in the image.

C. Picture the educator in at least two of the three photos. If the

educator is not pictured in the third photograph, there should be
some duplication of the other people represented in this third
photograph and one of the other two pictures. For example, a
husband is in all three photos, but the educator is in only two of
them.

D. Avoid the use of pets in photographs. Students are usually

enamored by pets and find them much easier to talk about than
people.

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 Forms for Testing

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 A Student Profile to be Completed by the Student

ABOUT THE STUDENT:

Name:

Date:

Parent's Names:

Mailing Address:

Phone Number:

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 Student Interview

(Note the student's ability to respond appropriately to the questions,

maintain eye gaze direction, and provide appropriate body language, tone
and inflection of voice and facial expression during the interaction)

1. What classes do you take?

2. What is your favorite thing to do in school?

3. Are kids nice to you at school?

• What do you do when someone is not nice?

• How do you know they are not being nice?

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 • Who are your friends at school?

• What do you like to do with them? (Explore the quality of

the friendships. Are they real friends or classmates?)

4. When you are in class what do you like to study the Most?

Least?

5. How do you plan your long-term projects?

• How do you track your assignments?

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 • How do you approach getting your homework done?

• Do you usually remember to turn in your homework?

6. What are you hobbies?

7. What do you like to spend most of your time doing?

Describe what you did when you were at home yesterday. (Explore
the intensity of their interests)

8. Who lives in your house?

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 What are their hobbies? (Explore how much they are aware of
the people they live with)

9. What do you have to do at home that you dislike?

10. Do you ever feel embarrassed?

What makes you feel embarrassed? (This is a perspective-taking

question. In order to feel embarrassed you have to realize that
other people are having thoughts about you. By asking this
you are interested in his sensitivity to those around him. It is
very typical, beginning in later elementary school, that
neurotypical children are incredibly sensitive to the emotion of
embarrassment.)

11. Do you have any pets?

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12. What chores do you have to do at home?

13. Who do you play with or hang out with at home?

• Do you have any neighborhood friends?

• What do you do with them? (It is not uncommon for a

student to have a close childhood friend in their
neighborhood)

14. What are your plans after the completion of High School?

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 Personal Picture Explanation

Prior to having the student interview you, ask him to explain to you what
the three pictures on your table are about.

By the completion of the photograph description task, make sure that every
student has a clear understanding of the pictures so that this information
can be used during the next task- when the student interviews you.

Student's Response/Observations:

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 Double Interview

(Student Interviews You)

Present "Wh" question word list to student.

Say something similar to the following: "I interviewed you by asking you
questions and I learned a lot about you today. I learned:

I know a lot about you, but you know very little about me. You were told to come
to my office and talk to me but you do not know much about me. To be fair, I am
going to let you find out about me. I just interviewed you by asking you a bunch
of questions about you, now you get to ask me a bunch of questions to find out
about me. Everything in this office belongs to me, including the pictures. You
may ask me anything about what you see in the office that relates to me, or what
you might be wondering about me."

Once you tell the student it is time for the interview of you to begin, it
is critical that you are quiet awaiting the response of the student.

Student's Response/Observations:

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 Cues for Students struggling with the Double Interview

If the student indicates that this task is stressful or overwhelming,

then the evaluator can help by:

1. Drawing four boxes across a piece of paper to provide a visual

framework of how many questions the student is to ask before the
task is discontinued.

2. Pointing to the pictures on the table and reminding the student that
he or she can use this information or any other information in the
room to ask questions of the interviewee or evaluator.

3. Directing the student to a specific topic that he or she can ask about.
For example, "In this picture I am with my daughters. What question
can you ask me about my daughters?" This generally solicits a
question, but the student will often fail to follow up this question with
another one still tied to the same topic. The student may need
another prompt, such as "Hmmmm, do you wonder what school they
go to?"

Provide the cues in the order they are presented above, beginning
with the least facilitating cues and moving through to the most.

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 Words to Initiate Questions

WHO

WHAT

WHEN

WHERE

WHY

HOW

DO YOU…?

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 Picture Sequence Task

• Use an eight-picture sequence for 3rd graders and above who appear
to function within the average range of intelligence or above.

• Present pictures in a random order and observe their strategy for

organizing the pictures and how easily they are able to engage in the
task.

• If having eight pictures overwhelms the student, remove four of them

and encourage him to start with just four. Then hand him back each of
the next four pictures to integrate into the mini-sequence he has
started.

• Do not correct any errors he has made. After the student indicates he
is done with the sequence, ask him to tell you the story the sequence of
pictures now presents.

• Observe to see whether he recognizes the mistakes that he has made,

and if he does not, observe how he accounts for his mistakes in his
verbal description.

Student's Response/Observations:

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 Social Scenario Task

• Pictures of social scenarios are single pictures that represent some

form of social interaction or display of specific emotion.

• These pictures are presented to the student with the request that the
student explain what is going on in the picture.

• Determine if the student can "read" subtle contextual and interpersonal

cues to determine the meaning.

Student's Response/Observation:

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 Student Name:

Please return to:

Date Needed:

Teacher Questionnaire/Interview

A. What does the student do to indicate he needs help when he is

stuck on something in the classroom?

B. Is he overly literal when compared to his classroom's peers?

C. Is there a difference between his reading decoding and reading

comprehension?

D. Does he struggle with holding a pencil and writing clearly?

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E. Does he struggle with writing paragraphs?

F. Is he thoughtful of others when playing games or having to work with

others in class?

G. Does he anticipate when it should or should not be his turn to talk, or

does he blurt out information?

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Patterns of Responses

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 Student Profile Responses

Check for penmanship, whether he is able to initiate asking for help if he

does not know how to complete all of the information requested.

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 Personal Picture Responses

For those who make errors, they tend to lump into four general categories:

A. Limited ability to shift perspective: Ability to take perspective of

others. (Many students may label your husband as "your father".)

B. Difficulty reading others' faces: You may need to assess more

deeply the student's abilities to recognize people's faces, as well as
evaluate more fully their ability to read the facial expressions of
others.

C. Limited accounting for contextual cues: Lack of attention to the

contextual cues that help to define the meaning and relationships in
the pictures is frequently noticeable in these students with social
cognitive deficits.

D. Limited ability to make inferences: It is not uncommon for students

to demonstrate difficulty in making inferences when looking at these
photographs.

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 Pattern of Responses for the Double Interview

Pattern of Responses Possible Implications

Commenting on what the student The student is attempting to make

knows about the evaluator rather sense of what he knows, but lacks
than formulating questions about the ability to seek more information
what he wants to find out. due to a lack of knowledge on how
to turn that information into
Questions.

Basic Deficit: Formulating

Questions

Only asking questions that relate to If the student does ask questions,
what the student is interested in. the questions may be about what
the student Wants to talk about,
i.e., "Do you know much About
carnivorous plants?"

Basic Deficits:

1. Inability to shift perspective

to think about the evaluator.

2. Difficulty formulating novel

language unrelated to his
area of interest.

Lack of ability to formulate any Awkward silence or sighs of

Questions at all. exasperation with the assignment.

Basic Deficit:

1. Lack of ability to shift

perspective to consider the
evaluator.

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Pattern of Responses Possible Implications

2. Lack of ability to organize

thoughts on what to ask the
evaluator.

3. Lack of ability to formulate

language to talk about the
evaluator.

If questions are formulated, they A few questions are asked, but

remain shallow. Questions none solicit deeper information
generally fail to provide a follow-up about the same topic. For example,
question about the same topic. the student may ask, "What are
Follow-up questions gain deeper your children's names?" What is
information about the topic and are your husband's name?" Then the
key to conversational success. student may say, "That's it, I don't
have anything else to ask."

Basic Deficit: Lack of ability to

organize I information by
formulating questions to direct a
single topic of discussion.

The student asks a question of the For example, the student asks,
evaluator, allows the evaluator time "Where did you go to school?" The
to respond, but he quickly diverts evaluator replies and then the
the topic back to his own area of student comments: "I go to Herbert
interest, making comments only Hoover. I play trumpet in the band.
about himself. Have you ever played trumpet
before?"

Basic Deficit: Difficulty shifting

perspective to think about other
people's experiences.

The student asks the evaluator the After being asked about his school
same questions asked of him. and home experience, the student
may the ask: "What elementary
school did you go to?" What did
you like to do during school? Who

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Pattern of Responses Possible Implications

were your Friends? What were

your hobbies?"

Basic Deficit: Creating novel

questions to fit the present context.

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 Picture Sequencing Responses

1. No significant errors, effortless positioning of the pictures and

accurate telling of the story. This means the student is able to
comprehend basic level socially themed stories and does a sufficient
job understanding the contextual cues and inferences in each
picture.

2. Difficulty establishing an order by which to organize the pictures in

sequence. The student appears overwhelmed by the information,
which implies a need to probe the following potential deficits more
deeply:

a. Organizational problems, understanding sequences presented

in classrooms, and possible reading comprehension issues.

b. Difficulty recognizing contextual cues.

c. Difficulty inferencing.

d. Difficulty interpreting the meaning of the people's body

language in pictures which implies difficulty accounting for
contextual cues, as well as abstracting nonverbal body
language information from which to make inferences.

3. Difficulty establishing the relationship between people in the

pictures. The student is not able to indicate who the people are
(mother, grandmother, birthday boy, friends) or what their purpose
is. Error in this area indicates potential deficits:

a. Lack of perspective taking: unable to understand the social

order and associated implications of these social relationships.

b. Difficulty reading faces and body language.

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 Social Scenario Responses

These pictures help the examiner to see how well a person accounts for
environmental contextual cues as part of his interpretation of social
interactions. Explore:

A. The ability to simultaneously consider contextual environmental cues.

B. The ability to simultaneously consider nonverbal cues.

C. The ability to describe a variety of emotions.

D. The ability to pull all this information into a logical gestalt.

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 Materials

Listed are some materials that were suggested by Michelle Garcia Winner.
Prices and companies are subject to change.

Item Catalogue and item # Price

Rubber Chicken Oriental Trading Co. $19.95 for 12

#MD-16/625

Emotions & Pro*Ed #11043 $49.99

Expressions Cards

Activities & Events The Speech Bin #W864 $42.75

(8 card sequence)

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