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 (Cheung, 2009) for providing the services for speech and language therapy (SLT) needs to both child and adult clients. This demand is particularly urgent in Chinese-speaking communities inside and outside China. This chapter describes some key features of Mandarin (which is used as a term to refer to Chinese as spoken in Malaysia in order to differentiate it from the term Putonghua used in China); reports the procedure of collecting and analysing data from Chinese-speaking children in Malaysia; and presents a C-LARSP chart with explanations and examples of the organization and usage applicable to assessing Chinese-speaking children; followed by a discussion of suggested future clinical data-collection procedures and implications for future SLT practices and research.