Chapter 14

Using Measures of Oral and Written Language

Assessing Language Competence

• When assessing language skills, it is important to break language down into processes and measure each one– Language appears in written and verbal format• Comprehension• Expression

– Normal levels of comprehension ≠ normal expression

– Normal levels of expression ≠ normal comprehension

Terminology: Language as Code

• Phonology:– Hearing and discriminating word sounds

• Semantics: – Understanding vocabulary, meaning, and concepts

• Morphology and syntax: – Understanding the grammatical structure of

language• Supralinguistics and pragmatics: – Understanding a speaker’s or writer’s intentions

Assessing Oral and Written Language

• Why?– Ability to converse and express thoughts is desirable– Basic oral and written language skills underlie higher-

order skills• Considerations in assessing oral language– Cultural diversity

• Differences in dialect are different, but not incorrect– Disordered production of primary language or dialect should be

considered when evaluating oral language • Are the norms and materials appropriate?

– Developmental considerations• Be aware of development norms for language acquisition

Assessing Oral and Written Language

• Considerations in assessing written language– Form and Content• Penmanship• Spelling• Style

– May be best assessed by evaluating students’ written work and developing tests (vocabulary, spelling, etc.) that parallel the curriculum

Methods for Observing Language Behavior

• Spontaneous language– Record what child says while talking to an adult or playing with

toys– Prompts may be used for older children– Analyze phonology, semantics, morphology, syntax, and

pragmatics• Imitation

– Require children to repeat words, phrases, or sentences produced by the examiner

– Valid predictor of spontaneous production– Standardized imitation tasks often used in oral language

assessment instruments • Elicited language

– A picture stimulus is used to elicit language

Methods for Observing Language Behavior

Advantages and disadvantages of each methodSpontaneous•Advantages

• Most natural indicator of everyday language performance

• Informal testing environment

•Disadvantages• Not a standardized

procedure (more variability)

• Time-intensive

Imitation•Advantages

• Comprehensive• Structured and

efficient administration•Disadvantages

• Auditory memory may affect results

• Hard to draw conclusions from accurate imitations

• Boring for child

Elicited language•Advantages

• Interesting and efficient

• Comprehensive•Disadvantages

• Difficult to create valid measurement tools

Specific Oral and Written Language Tests

• Test of Written Language – Fourth Edition (TOWL-4)

• Test of Language Development: Primary – Fourth Edition (TOLD-P:4)

• Test of Language Development: Intermediate – Fourth Edition (TOLD-I:4)

• Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS)

Test of Written Language – Fourth Edition (TOWL-4)

• General– Norm-referenced– Designed to assess written language competence

of students between the ages of 9 and 17– Two formats• Contrived • Spontaneous

TOWL-4

•Contrived– Vocabulary – Spelling– Punctuation– Logical sentences– Sentence combining

• Spontaneous– Contextual conventions– Story composition

Subtests

TOWL-4

• Scores– Raw scores can be converted to percentile or

standard scores– Three composite scores and one overall score• Contrived writing• Logical sentences• Spontaneous writing• Overall writing

TOWL-4

• Norms– Three age ranges: 9-11, 12-14, and 15-17– Distribution approximates nationwide school-age population for

2005; however, insufficient data are presented to confirm this• Reliability

– Variable data for internal consistency, stability, and inter-scorer agreement

– 2 composites reliable for making educational decisions about students

• Validity– Content, construct, and predictive validity evidence is presented– Validity of inferences drawn from data is somewhat unclear

Test of Language Development: Primary – Fourth Edition (TOLD-P:4)

• General– Norm-referenced, untimed, individually

administered test– 4-8 years of age– Used to:• Identify children significantly below their peers in oral

language • Determine specific strengths and weaknesses• Document progress in remedial programs• Measure oral language in research studies

TOLD-P:4• Subtests

– Picture vocabulary – Relational vocabulary – Oral vocabulary– Syntactic understanding– Sentence imitation– Morphological completion– Word discrimination– Word analysis– Word articulation

• Scores– Raw scores converted to:

• Age equivalents, percentile ranks, subtests scaled scores, and composite scores

– Composite scores• Listening• Organizing• Speaking• Grammar • Semantics• Spoken language

TOLD-P:4

• Norm population– 1,108 individuals across 4 geographic regions– Sample partitioned according to the 2007 census

• Reliability– Adequate estimates of reliability

• Coefficient alpha • Test-retest • Scorer difference

• Validity – Adequate content, construct, and criterion-related

validity evidence

Test of Language Development: Intermediate – Fourth Edition (TOLD-I:4)• General– Norm-referenced, untimed, individually

administered test– 8-17 years of age– Used to:• Identify children significantly below their peers in oral

language • Determine specific strengths and weaknesses• Document progress in remedial programs• Measure oral language in research studies

TOLD-I:4

• Subtests– Sentence combining – Picture vocabulary – Word ordering– Relational vocabulary – Morphological

comprehension – Multiple meanings

• Norm population– 1,097 students from 4

geographic regions– Sample partitioned according

to the 2007 census

• Scores– Raw scores converted to:

• Age equivalents, percentile ranks, subtests scaled scores, and composite scores

– Composite scores• Listening• Organizing • Speaking• Grammar• Semantics• Spoken language

TOLD-I:4

• Reliability– Adequate estimates of

reliability• Coefficient alpha • Test-retest • Scorer difference

• Validity – Adequate content,

construct, and criterion-related validity evidence

Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS)

• General– Norm referenced, individually administered

assessment of receptive and expressive language– 3-21 years of age

• Subtests– Listening comprehension– Oral expression– Written expression

OWLS

• Norm population– 1,985 students matched to 1991 census data

• Scores– Raw scores converted to:• Standard scores, age equivalents, normal-curve

equivalents, percentiles, and stanines• Scores generated for each subtest, an oral language

composite, and for a written language composite

OWLS

• Reliability– Sufficient internal and test-retest reliability for

screening, but not for making important decisions about individual students

• Validity – Adequate criterion-related validity