Previous virtual care literature within the field of speech-language pathology has primarily focused on the implementation of specific intervention programs, but recommendations for best practices in virtual assessment, particularly standardized assessment of oral language and literacy abilities are scarce. Given the recent rapid rise in virtual care and research, clinicians and researchers require guidance on best practices for virtual administration of these tools. We informally reviewed the extant literature, and conducted semi-structured interviews with a group of 12 clinicians, students and researchers who had administered standardized language and literacy assessments with typically developing children between the ages of four and eight, in a virtual setting. Six themes: candidacy for virtual assessment, communication and collaboration with caregivers, technology and equipment, virtual administration, ethics, consent and confidentiality, and special considerations for bilingual populations were discussed, to develop a set of recommendations to guide the use of standardized assessments in a virtual setting. In line with the Guidelines International Network, these recommendations were rated by group members, and reviewed by external stakeholders. This paper is one of the first to share recommended practices for virtual assessment in the domain of oral language assessment. As research on the reliability of virtual assessment in this realm is still scarce, we hope the current recommendations will facilitate future clinical research in this area, and in turn will lead to the development of formal Clinical Practice Guidelines.
TOWARD DEVELOPMENT OF GUIDELINES FOR VIRTUAL ADMINISTRATION OF STANDARDIZED LANGUAGE AND LITERACY ASSESSMENTS: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CLINICIANS AND RESEARCHERS