STRUCTURED PHOTOGRAPHIC
EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE
TEST 3 (SPELT®3)
Janet Dawson, Ph.D., Connie Stout, Ph.D. and Julia Eyer, Ph.D.
The SPELT®-3 includes 54 full color photographs of everyday situations and objects paired with simple verbal questions and statements to elicit
specific morphological and syntactical structures. It allows for analysis of specific language structures that may not occur in spontaneous
language samples. The childs strengths and weaknesses can be readily identified. Test items target the childs use of inflectional
MORPHOLOGY (plurals, possessive nouns, verb tense endings), VERB FORM (present progressive, regular and irregular past, future,
contractible/uncontractible copula, contractible/uncontractible auxiliary), PRONOUN USAGE, subject pronoun, possessive pronoun, reflexive
pronoun), and SYNTAX (negative, conjoined sentence, Wh question, interrogative reversal, negative infinitive phrase, propositional
complement, relative clause, and front embedded clause).
Administration time is from 15 to 20 minutes.
Ages: 4-0 through 9-11.
A study examining the evidence for using the SPELT®-3 to diagnose language impairment found, that
the data provide empirical support for the use of theSPELT®-3 for the purpose of differentiating between
children with normal language and those with impaired language.
Perona, K., Plante, E., & Vance, R. Diagnostic
Accuracy of the Structured Photographic
Expressive Language Test: Third Edition (SPELT®-3).
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools,
36, 103-115.
FEATURES OF THE SPELT®-3
Standard scores, confidence intervals, percentile ranks,
percentile bands and test-age equivalents are provided
for females and males, ages 4 through 9-11.
Normative tables are based on a national sample of
over 1800 children from the four geographical areas
specified by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Fifty-four 4" x 6" real life color photos in an album
provide larger improved stimulus pictures.
Morphological and syntactical structures have
been added such as wh clause, relative clause, front
embedded clause, and propositional complement.
A chapter on African American English and
scoring guide are provided by Nola T. Radford, Ph.D.
A chapter on the technical qualities of the
SPELT®-3 standardization sample scores is provided
by Laura Barnes, Ph.D.
Reliability and validity studies are reported.
#0705 SPELT®-3 - $299.00
Contents: manual, 54 color photographs (4" x 6") in a bound album, 30 response forms, sturdy storage box #0706 SPELT®-3 Response Forms (Package of 30) - $44.00
FIELD TESTING
