Clinical Acceptability of Standardized Language Tests for Children Who Speak Cantonese

Abstract:

Background and Purpose:

In Hong Kong, the diagnosis of language disorders in Cantonese-speaking children relies on standardized language tests and measures of functional communication (Bishop et al., 2017). Five standardized language tests, published between 1987 and 2022, are available for this population. These tests are supported by robust normative data and demonstrate strong psychometric properties, enabling accurate identification of language difficulties and supporting diagnoses of language disorders. However, the clinical acceptability of these tests among speech-language pathologists remains unexplored.

Clinical acceptability is a multifaceted construct that reflects the degree to which healthcare providers or recipients perceive an intervention as appropriate, based on their anticipated or experienced cognitive and emotional responses (Sekhon et al., 2017). Investigating clinical acceptability among speech-language pathologists is critical to understanding whether these well-developed tests are valued and effectively utilized in clinical practice. Such insights will reveal clinicians’ perceptions, highlighting both positive and negative factors influencing test adoption. These findings will guide the future development of standardized tests for language skills and other communication disorders, optimizing research resources to create clinically acceptable tools that meet the needs of clinicians, clients, and caregivers.

Research Questions:

What is the retrospective clinical acceptability of standardized language tests for Cantonese-speaking children from the perspective of speech-language pathologists as intervention providers?

Skills and experience required for the project:

Preferred disciplines: Education, Speech-Language Pathology, Psychology, Social Sciences, Linguistics, and Medicine.

Software skills: Survey development using Qualtrics; experienced in simple qualitative and qualitative analyses.

Soft skills: Strong communication and interpersonal abilities; attentive to detail.