Test of Auditory Processing – 4th Edition (TAPS 4)

A Language Processing Skills Assessment

Authors: Nancy Martin, PhD / Rick Brownell, MS / Patricia Hamaguchi, MA, CCC-SLP

Individual Administration
Ages 5 through 21
Norm Referenced
Testing Time: 60–90 Minutes
Qualification Level B
Description

The TAPS-4 provides information about language processing and comprehension skills across three intersecting areas: phonological processing, auditory memory and listening comprehension. These areas underpin the development of effective listening and communication skills, and are critical to the development of higher order language skills, including literacy skills.

The TAPS-4 features new subtests along with revisions to subtests from the TAPS-3, fully updated norms, and an expanded age range. The TAPS-4 subtests were also reorganized into Index and Supplemental subtests, reducing testing burden and increasing flexibility in administration.

The TAPS-4 also features audio administration for the subtests in which proper pronunciation of speech sounds is critical, providing a greater degree of standardization and accuracy during the testing process.

The TAPS-4 has 11 subtests, organized into three indices:

Phonological Processing Index:

Word (Pair) Discrimination: Assesses an individual’s ability to discriminate whether a given word pair is the same or different
Phonological Deletion: Assesses an individual’s ability to manipulate phonemes within words
Phonological Blending: Assesses an individual’s ability to synthesize a word given the individual phonemes
Syllabic Blending (Supplemental): Assesses an individual’s ability to synthesize a nonsense word given the individual syllables
Auditory Memory Index:

Number Memory Forward: Assesses an individual’s ability to recall an auditory sequence of numbers in the given order
Word Memory: Assesses an individual’s ability to recall an auditory sequence of words in the given order
Sentence Memory: Assesses an individual’s ability to recall a spoken sentence
Number Memory Reversed (Supplemental): Assesses an individual’s ability to recall an auditory sequence of numbers in the reverse order
Listening Comprehension Index:

Processing Oral Directions (without background noise):Assesses an individual’s ability to process and recall oral directions when presented in quiet listening conditions
Auditory Comprehension:Assesses an individual’s ability to comprehend oral language at the sentence and narrative level, including literal recall, inference, and higher order language tasks such as idioms and figurative language
Auditory Figure-Ground (Processing Oral Directions with background noise) (Supplemental):Assesses an individual’s ability to process and recall oral directions when presented with competing background noise
The TAPS-4 assesses five narrow abilities across three broad skill areas as defined in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of cognitive abilities:

Short-Term Memory

Memory Span (MS)
Working Memory Capacity (MW)
Auditory Processing

Phonetic Coding (PC)
Resistance to Auditory Stimulus Distortion (UR)
Comprehension Knowledge

Listening Ability (LS)
Administration and Scoring

TAPS-4 Index subtests can be administered in one hour or less. Scaled scores are provided for subtests; standard scores are provided for indices and the overall score. Discrepancy scores allow comparison of performance across subtests.