1. When it comes to assessing preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder, language samples are one of the most powerful tools we have. But if we’re not careful, our methods can lead to unreliable or misleading data. To truly capture a child’s authentic communication, we need to take a neurodiverse approach — one that matches how children with autism learn and use language.

In this episode of the Preschool SLP Podcast, Kelly Vess shares her five favorite hacks for language sampling that ensure valid, reliable results while respecting each child’s neurodiverse profile. These practical strategies will help you stop wasting time on flawed samples and start gathering data that truly drives therapy.

🔑 What You’ll Learn:

1. Keep the activity consistent – why changing toys skews samples and how to use alphabet boxes to control variables.
2. Mirror, don’t model – how to avoid “sampling yourself” by limiting your speech and only echoing the child’s words.
3. 25 utterances are enough – the research-backed shortcut that saves hours of therapy and transcription time.
4. Use growth curves with MLU – how to track progress meaningfully, even when children are on their own developmental trajectory.
5. Measure IRS (Intra-Repetitive Speech) – the overlooked but critical quality marker that shows whether speech is becoming more spontaneous or more repetitive.

Kelly argues that MLU alone is not enough — we must also track the quality of communication. By measuring IRS, we can see if a child is moving toward more generative, spontaneous speech or regressing into more scripted repetition.

💡 Ready to streamline your assessments and make your therapy sessions more effective? The SIS Membership provides educationally rich, empirically based, ready-for-use weekly activities that align perfectly with these evidence-based principles.

👉 Join SIS today at www.kellyvess.com/sis