The Oral and Written Language Scales, Second Edition (OWLS-II) includes four co-normed scales that can be evaluated individually or used together to provide a composite score with a comprehensive assessment of the language abilities of an individual . These scales include Written Expression (WE), Oral Expression (OE), Reading Comprehension (RC), and Listening Comprehension (LC).
A licensed professional can administer the assessment, evaluating oral language skills in students ages 3 through 21 and written language skills in students ages 5 through 21.
The OWLS-II is a revision of the original OWLS assessment. It retains the most useful aspects of the original while updating parts of each scale to make it more effective.
Scale Scores
Each scale can be used on its own to yield its own interpretable score. Using scales individually is a reliable and convenient feature when it is suspected that the student suffers from only one specific oral or written language deficiency. Using a single targeted scale also allows for faster assessment, as each of the four scales can take 10-30 minutes to complete.
The scale scores include age-based and grade-based standard scores, test-age and grade equivalents, percentile ranks, and descriptive categories. These scale scores allow the evaluation of every age and grade according to their skill level while determining where they fall when compared to normally developing peers.
If needed, the scales can be administered together in various combinations to yield composite scores as follows:
· Oral language combines the listening comprehension and oral expression scales
· Written language combines the reading comprehension and written expression scales
· Receptive language the combines listening comprehension and reading comprehension scales
· Expressive language combines the oral expression and written expression scales
· Overall language combines all four scales: listening comprehension, oral expression, reading comprehension, and written expression
Administering these various combinations of scales enables the targeting of certain skills to assess development and plan intervention, treatment, and continued assessment of progress over time.
Scale Comparison
Each of the four OWLS-II scales can be compared side by side to gather information regarding meaningful differences. This type of assessment and comparison of scales can more accurately identify specific deficiencies and lead to effective intervention planning.
Chapters 2 and 4 of the LC/OE and RC/WE manuals gives further detail on how scale comparison works and how each comparison should be evaluated.
The new Comprehensive Profile Form in the OWLS-II revised assessment helps facilitate scale comparison and is available for free as a PDF download. You can also find a completed sample Comprehensive Profile Form for your reference in chapter 2 of the LC/OE and RC/WE manuals.
The OWLS-II assessment has been a leading tool in measuring oral and written language skills in children and young adults. By using the OWLS-II to guide and direct intervention, you can create treatment plans and measure progress over time.
For more information about the OWLS-II and other speech and language assessments, visit WPS today.
