CLINICAL DECISION-MAKING - DESCRIBING THE DECISION RULES OF PRACTICING SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGISTS

The diagnostic decision-making standards used by practicing clinicians to determine language impairment were investigated. Randomly selected ASHA members who worked with children were asked to review hypothetic al and real case profiles of children ages 4 to 9:11 (years: months) w ith language performance skills ranging from slightly above average to substantially below average. Based on the child's age and language an d intelligence test information, clinicians were asked to decide if th e child was language impaired (LI) and, if so, to provide a severity r ating. Results show significant interrater agreement among the 27 clin icians' LI decisions (generalized kappa = 0.14, p < .0001) and moderat e intrarater reliability within clinician's LI decisions (phi = .68). Most of the clinicians' diagnostic decision-making standards could be modeled using stepwise logistic regression. These decision rules can p rovide guidance for those who wish to employ diagnostic standards that reflect those used in clinical practice. Also, these results provide insight into the manner in which clinicians use information for the de termination of language impairment.