C-LARSP: Developing a Chinese Grammatical Profile

The existence of assessment tools such as LARSP has facilitated clinical language profiling, leading to better-informed intervention plans in the West. However, in the East, by and large, the development of such assessment tools is still in its infancy, although there is a great demand for providing services for speech and language therapy (SLT) needs to both child and adult clients (Cheung, 2009). This demand is particularly urgent in Chinesespeaking communities inside and outside China. As it has been estimated that 5–10% of any population may suffer communication disorders, this presents a significant proportion of the world’s population who need help from SLT services in Chinese-speaking communities. Further, for both linguistic and cultural reasons, simply importing a language assessment package from ready-made Western SLT resources is not an ideal way to tackl e issues faced by local SLT clients, and currently there is a lack of locally produced, and linguistically and culturally appropriate language assessment tools in China and elsewhere.