A Critical Analysis of Standardized Testing in Speech and Language Therapy

Abstract

Purpose: This review article critically interrogates the history and the current practice of standardized assessment in speech and language therapy. Speech and language assessments utilizing standardized linguistic norms are a critical tool for constructing disability and controlling disabled individuals. Such practices are rooted in a medical model of disability where the linguistic practice(s) of the individual is pathologized to create normalcy and disorder. Method: We examine how these practices are anchored in eugenics and the racist logics of intelligence testing in which racialized populations were rendered as linguistically and biologically inferior. Results: This review article shows how ideologies governing standardized assessments are influenced by racism, ableism, and the nation-state and serve as foundational mechanisms to enable surveillance and capital production. It demonstrates how standard language ideologies are central to standardized testing. Speech and language therapy practices upholding these ideologies contribute to unrestrained wealth generation for the testing industry. Conclusions: The review article ends with a call for clinicians, educators, and researchers to critically examine the relationship between standardized assessment, race, disability, and capitalism in speech-language therapy. This process will contribute toward dismantling the hegemonic role of standardized assessment in oppression and marginalization of speech and language−disabled individuals.