Description:
The TACL-4 assesses the ability to understand the structure of spoken language (receptive language). With this edition, the age range has been extended upward, and age-related start points have been added, with basals and ceilings, to minimize testing time. Additional easy and difficult items were added to address floor and ceiling effects. Items are ordered by difficulty in each of the three subtests, which assess:
Vocabulary: The meanings of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, including words representing percepts and conceptsGrammatical Morphemes: The meaning of function words such as prepositions, pronouns, and determiners, and inflections such as noun number and case, verb number and tense, noun-verb agreement, and deviational suffixesElaborated Phrases and Sentences: The understanding of syntactically based word relations and elaborated constructions, including interrogative sentences, negative sentences, active and passive voice, direct and indirect objects, embedded sentences, and conjoined sentences
Pictures are in color to increase appeal to children, and each test item has been analyzed to eliminate potential bias. The TACL-4 was normed on a nationally representative sample of 1,142 children. The TACL-4 test kit now includes a copy of reviews and research findings for the TACL.
Administration and Scoring:
The examiner reads a stimulus word, phrase, or sentence aloud, and the child is directed to point to a color picture that illustrates the meaning. The test can be completed in 20-30 minutes. Standard scores, percentiles, and age equivalents are provided for subtests and for the composite Receptive Language Index. If the TEXL is administered with the TACL-4, the examiner can obtain a comprehensive measure of language ability, using a reproducible form found in the TACL-4/TEXL Comprehensive Scoring Supplement, included in the TACL-4 and TEXL test kits. 
