Description
The PLSI is useful for teachers, early intervention specialists, and other professionals to do a quick screening of childrens pragmatic language skills. Designed as a rating scale with 45 items, the PLSI can also be employed to document progress and to set goals for pragmatic language development.

There are three subscales:

• Personal Interaction Skills assesses initiating conversation, asking for help, participating in verbal games, and using appropriate nonverbal communicative gestures
  
  
• Social Interaction Skills tests knowing when to talk and when to listen, understanding classroom rules, taking turns in conversation, and predicting consequences for one's behavior
  
  
• Classroom Interaction Skills assesses use of figurative language, maintaining a topic in conversation, explaining how things work, writing a good story, and appropriate use of slang
  

Administration and Scoring
Filling out the rating scale takes 5-10 minutes. Cutoff scores help the examiner decide whether to refer the student for a comprehensive language assessment.