Language And Bilingual Assessment

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Language And Bilingual Assessment

• Chapter 10

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• Language refers to any means used to receive or
  send messages
• language is the use of organized voice sounds and
  written symbols to communicate thoughts and
  feeling

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• expressive language involve sending messages and
  translating thoughts, ideas, and signals into
  vocal or motor expression
• Receptive language consist of receiving input
  from the senses and giving meaning to that
  sensory input
• inner language is the use of language in
  thinking, planning, and cognition (thought within
  one self) necessary for developmental building
  block for receptive and expressive

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• Development in use of language which begins in
  infancy and continues throughout one's life
• it serves as a basis for social and cognitive
  growth
• For school-age children, language is both the
  foundation for academic learning and the basis
  for organizing thought itself.

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• Many students with disabilities exhibit
  significant language deficits
• language problems are the most common disability
  among school-age children
• articulation disorders represent by far the most
  common language deficits in children
• specific language problems are associated with
  certain disabilities

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• students with hearing disabilities typically
  manifest severe speech and language deficits
  based on the type, severity, and age of onset of
  deafness
• physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy have
  characteristic speech problems
• people with mental retardation may exhibit
  general delays in developing language skills the
  delay is related to the severity

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• Assessing Speech And Language
• Speech Disorders
• questions arise when someone has difficulty
  understanding a child speech
• speech pathologist is the primary evaluator which
  includes screening, comprehensive assessment,
  writing an IEP, and developing specific
  interventions
• students with speech disabilities generally have
  difficulty producing the correct sounds of speech
  (articulation)

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• Language Disorders
• focuses on the child's expressive language,
  receptive language, or inner language

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• Considerations And Language Assessment
• many test and other domains rely on language
  based items
• use caution that the language deficits rather
  than lack of content knowledge may depress the
  test results
• many test are written specifically for young
  children fewer written for adolescence and adults
• assessment should be a more team approach speech
  clinicians and teachers

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• interpret results regarding language development
  vs. general learning ability
• students with learning disabilities often have
  trouble with word meanings, memory, and ability
  to generalize
• lack of motivation and inappropriate behavior may
  significantly depress language performance
• language assessment receives less emphasis then
  academic and functional skills

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• Structural Components Of Language
• receptive language (listening) decodes the
  meaning of messages, including written ones
• expressive language (speech) translates ideas
  into vocal or motor expression including sign
  language and writing

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• phonology the smallest units of sound and spoken
  language which are called phonemes
• there 44 speech sounds which have no meaning by
  themselves
• morphology study of morphemes which are the
  smallest meaningful unit in language
• Syntax is the way morphemes or words go together
  to form phrases and meaningful sentences

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• Semantics involves understanding and expressing
  word meanings and relationships, including
  vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms, word categories,
  and ambiguities and absurdities
• Pragmatics is the use of language in context,
  especially during social interaction. Pragmatics
  involves a rule system consisting of the setting,
  the characteristics of the participants, the
  topic, and the purpose of the interaction

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• Why we assess language?
• Language assessment is a necessary element in
  bringing children with potential learning
  disabilities who may need further assessment to
  determine whether they qualify for and would
  benefit from special education services.

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• To screen children who may have learning deficits
• To identify, classify and place children with
  learning deficits
• To help develop IEP's, planning instructional
  programs, and develop specific language
  interventions
• To measure the progress of children with learning
  deficits

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• Curriculum Based Language Assessment
• provides the most direct link between assessment
  classroom instruction
• collecting spontaneous language samples and
  real-life setting
• analyzing the mean length of utterances
• conducting developmental sentence analysis
• interviewing the child and the parents
• completing criterion referenced checklist of
  specific learning behaviors
• observing the child's language in natural setting
  such as a classroom, the home, or with peers

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• Assessing Sounds Of Language Phonology
• evaluating the use of speech sounds both
  expressively and receptively
• children with disabilities may develop phonemes
  later than usual
• articulation disorders occur when students fail
  to produce phonemes appropriately

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• Goldman-Fristoe Test Articulation, 2nd Ed.
• to diagnose articulation problems
• sounds and words, sounds and sentence, and the
  ability to understand misarticulated sounds
• Goldman-Fristoe-Woodcock Test Of Auditory
  Discrimination
• screening tests for a story discrimination
• used under noisy and quiet conditions

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• Assessing Units Of Meaning Morphology And
  Phrases And Sentences Syntax
• The Test Of Auditory Comprehension Of Language
  3rd Edition (TACL-3)
• assesses auditory comprehension ability
• when vocabulary, morphology, and syntax are tested

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• Informal Measures Of Assessing Morphology And
  Syntax
• mean length of utterances (MLU) and developmental
  sentence analysis
• assesses spontaneous language, which is the
  candid, unrehearsed vocal expression occurs
  naturally and real-life situations
• this involves collected speech sample by
  tape-recording for further transcription analysis

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• it has distinct advantages over formal testing
• places fewer controls on the student than
  structured language test
• the student may exhibit phrases and sentences and
  spontaneous speech not observed informal testing
• it enables evaluator to observe language during
  interaction with others in natural setting
• it enables the evaluation of words and sentences
  a student knows well enough to use in everyday
  language

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• Assessing Semantics and Pragmatics
• assessing semantics involves measuring receptive
  and expressive language skills and the ability to
  find words, categorizing words, identifies
  synonyms, and antonyms, and comprehend
  absurdities or ambiguities.
• Vocabulary's most frequently measured element
  semantics
• the WISC-and III measures several types of
  expressive language skills including the ability
  to define words
• The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test 3rd Edition

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• Measurement pragmatics is less available refers
  to assessing the understanding of the structure
  of different forms of communication the rules are
• routines for taking turns in conversation
• use of formal vs. informal conversation among
  supervisors, family, and peers
• appropriate use of verbal humor and social
  situations
• test of pragmatics language and test of
  pragmatics skills

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• Comprehensive Measures Of Language
• measures contain separate subtests for evaluating
  different structural components of language
• Test Of Language Development Primary, 3rd Edition
  (TOLD-P3)
• for children from 4 through 8
• helps to identify language disorders and to
  isolate particular types of language deficits

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• Assessing Children Who Are Culturally And
  Linguistically Diverse
• by the year 2010 there'll be 24 million or 37
  percent of the school-age population from diverse
  cultures
• culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD)
  refers to students from minority cultures who
  know and use two languages
• limited English proficiency (LEP) refers to CLD
  students that display inadequate skills in the
  understanding and speaking of the English language

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• Accurate assessment is paramount
• Few standards and guidelines exist for deciding
  the readiness for testing in English
• questionable validity of current options for
  testing students in their native language
• this includes translating test into the native
  language, using interpreters, using test with
  norms in the primary language, and relying on
  bilingual psychologist to administer test

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• informal assessment procedures such as
  spontaneous language sampling which focuses on
  the language used interactions with others in
  real-life settings may be better option
• The Basic Inventory Of Native Language is an
  example of an assessment system for spontaneous
  language samples
• current best practice guidelines recommend that
  schools conduct their own language proficiency
  assessment

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• Screening Strategies
• evaluate proficiency in the native language and
  English
• refers for special education assessment only
  after the student has adjusted to the new culture
• look for indicators of language and problems
  beyond language acquisition

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• Comprehensive Assessment Strategies
• avoid relying on outside sources of information
  regarding language proficiency
• use current language assessment data (no older
  than 6-month)
• obtain and use both formal and informal
  assessment information

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• Assessing Students With Severe Communication
  Disorders
• severe communication disorders may be due to
  disabilities such as physical impairments, severe
  mental retardation, developmental disabilities,
  or severe forms of autism
• some students may be nonvocal which means they
  are unable to speak due to motor disability
• some students may be nonverbal which means they
  are unable to speak due to an intellectual
  deficit
• nonvocal student may use aided communication
  systems such as a communication board or
  synthesized voice output device

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• Assessing Students With Severe Communication
  Disorder
• ecological assessment - what language,
  communication, and interaction occurs in the
  students daily environment
• assessing met and unmet needs - this evaluate the
  types of communication that the student presently
  uses

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• appraisal future needs - this assesses what
  communication system will the student need in the
  future
• team assessment - this looks a what kind of
  communication system will best meet current and
  future needs
• Progress monitoring - how well is a student
  learning to use communication system
• Data collection - is the system helping to meet
  communication needs