Research and product Development Standards
At the Lavi Institute, all test and intervention development, research and standardization project procedures are implemented in compliance with the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education [AERA, APA, and NCME], 2014).
Additionally, all test and intervention development and research procedures are reviewed and approved by IntegReview IRB (Advarra), an accredited and certified independent institutional review board, which is organized and operates in compliance with the US federal regulations (including, but not limited to 21 CFR Parts 50 and 56, and 45 CFR Part 46), various guidelines as applicable (both domestic and international, including but not limited to OHRP, FDA, EPA, ICH GCP as specific to IRB review, Canadian Food and Drug Regulations, the Tri-Council Policy Statement 2, and CIOMS), and the ethical principles underlying the involvement of human subjects in research (including The Belmont Report, Nuremberg Code, Declaration of Helsinki).
Published Research Studies
Lavi, A. (2019) The Efficacy of a Visual Auditory Bombardment Intervention (VABI) Versus Traditional Video Modelling Intervention (VMI)
in Students with Pragmatic Language Impairments. Autism Open Access 9: 240. doi: 10.35248/2165-7890.19.09.240. Access Article here
Lavi, A., Mainess, K. (2019) A Comparative Analysis of Social (Pragmatic) Communication Skills in Students with High-Functioning Autism and Pragmatic Language Impairment using Video-Based Assessments. Autism Open Access. Access Article here
Lavi A, Mainess KJ, Daher N (2016) Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs): A Validation Study of a Video-Based Test of Pragmatic Language in Adolescent Students. Autism Open Access 6: 172. Access Article here.
Additionally, the Lavi Institute is a licensed professional development provider in the state of California and an ASHA approved CE provider. Since 2013, we have done over 60 presentations and trainings in the area of assessment and intervention of social communication nationwide including national and state conventions, numerous school districts and universities.
Expert Reviews
The Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics test developed by the Lavi Institute has received highly favorable reviews from nationwide SLP speakers and experts in the area of social communication such as Dr. Carol Westby and Tatyana Elleseff stating that the CAPs test ” offers excellent sensitivity and specificity….and is well suited to identify children with social communication difficulties” (Elleseff, 2018) and it ” may better identify social deficits in students with average or above average skills in cognition and structural language than pragmatic tests that employ static pictures or language vignettes only as stimuli because the CAPs requires the ability to rapidly and simultaneously interpret multiple cues in social situations and to integrate language, facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice to produce appropriate and effective responses in realistic social situation” (Westby, 2010).