The Telephone Language Screener (TLS): standardization of a novel telephone-based screening test for language impairment.

Background: This study aimed at developing and standardizing the Telephone Language Screener (TLS), a novel, disease-nonspecific, telephone-based screening test for language disorders.

Methods: The TLS was developed in strict pursuance to the current psycholinguistic standards. It comprises nine tasks assessing phonological, lexical-semantic and morpho-syntactic components, as well as an extra Backward Digit Span task.