Table Of ContentProfiling Linguistic
Disability
Profiling Linguistic
Disability
Second edition
David Crystal
Honorary Professorial Fellow
University College of North Wales
Bangor
SINGULAR PUBLISHING GROUP, INC.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
© David Crystal 1992
First published 1982 by Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd
Reprinted 1989 by Whurr Publishers Ltd
Second edition 1992 published by
Whurr Publishers Ltd
19b Compton Terrace, London Nt 2UN, UK
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crystal, David, 1941-
Profiling linguistic disability I David Crystal. 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56593-053-3
1. Language disorders in children-Diagnosis. 2. Speech disorders
in children-Diagnosis. I. Title.
[DNLM: L Language Disorders--diagnosis. 2. Language Disorders
-therapy. 3. Speech Disorders--diagnosis. 4. Speech Disorders-
-therapy. WM 475 c957pl
RJ498.L35C79 1992
618.92'855075---0c20
DNLMIDLC 92-3712
for Library of Congress CIP
ISBN 1-56593-053-3
Typeset by Huron Graphics, Ann Arbor, USA
Corrections to second edition by J&L Composition Ltd, Filey, North Yorkshire, UK
Printed and bound in the UK by Athenaeum Press Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne
Contents
Preface to second edition v
Preface to first edition vii
1 Linguistic profiles 1
2 LARSP (language assessment, remediation and screening
procedure) 14
3 PROPH (profile of phonology) 54
4 PROP (prosody profile) 114
5 PRISM (profile in semantics) 139
6 Putting profiles into practice 214
Bibliographical notes 224
Index 228
ix
Preface to the second edition
For this new edition, I have corrected a couple of dozen irritating errors
which crept through into the original printing, updated references, and taken
the opportunity to add a new chapter which carries through the use of
profiling techniques into the teaching situation. Copies of the various profile
charts, A4 size, continue to be available from PO Box 5, Holyhead, Gwynedd
LL65 1RG, UK.
David Crystal
Holyhead, October 1991
v
Preface to the first edition
In this book, 1 have brought together the main techniques which I use in the
assessment and remediation of language disability. These techniques have
been developed over quite a long period of time. The first was the method of
grammatical investigation known as LARSP, which underwent its trials
between 1970 and 1975, and was finally published in 1976, under the title of
The grammatical analysis of language disability (co-authored by my Univer
sity of Reading colleagues, Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman). During that
year, I began to write up the results of research into prosodic development,
and the first draft of a prosody profile was constructed shortly after. It has
taken several years to give this profile an adequate clinical trial, due mainly to
the paucity of patients with prosodic disability in Reading at anyone time. In
1978 Paul Fletcher and 1 produced a first draft of a segmental phonological
profile, and this went through some 20 versions before it achieved the final
form presented here. There has. in this case, been no shortage of patients
with phonological problems on whom to tryout the procedure. Finally. the
pressing need for a semantic procedure 'has become more insistent
especially in relation to certain kinds of adult aphasia (where LARSP has
proved of limited value) and to the restricted vocabulary ranges of many
children. I am not happy with the present form of the semantic profile, but it
has proved better than nothing. in attempting to make sense of the complex
field of semantic disability. It is therefore presented here. despite its
shortcomings. in the hope that it will be of some help to others involved in this
area.
The slow process of revision will doubtless affect all of these projects one
day. Already, we have benefited from the criticisms made of LARSP. as it
has come to be used routinely in various parts of the world. The account of
this procedure in the present book. therefore, is as up-to-date as I can make
it, being the first full account of the revised (1981) chart. Naturally. I we Icome
comments concerning the use of the other procedures too, knowing very well
that progress will come only as a result of the sharing of ideas about these
matters.
I have restricted this book to an expository account of the techniques
themselves, along with an illustration of their use from several of the patients
who have attended my special assessment clinic at the University of Reading
in recent years. The book does not provide a discussion of the theoretical
reasoning which led to the development of a clinical linguistic approach. nor
of the various theoretical issues which underlie the analysis of phonological.
grammatical and semantic disability. I have written of such things elsewhere
(Clinical linguistics, Vienna and New York: Springer 1981), and there was no
vu
