This article demonstrated that despite the 10 years that had passed between the publication of McCauley and Swisher (1984) and this article, the vast majority of commercially available norm-referenced tests did not provide psychometric measures deemed necessary in order to establish a test as valid.
This was one of the first of many articles publishing research demonstrating the severe limitations of using commercially available child language tests when assessing children for speech and language disability.
This study proved that measures other than standardized language assessments can more accurately identify language impairment in culturally and linguistically diverse children (in this case monolingual Spanish speakers).
A normal distribution, also called a bell curve, occurs when variables (i.e., test scores) plotted on a graph fall into a regular distribution around a single mean. In a normal distribution, about 96% of the scores will fall within 2 standard deviations of the mean.
A standard deviation (SD) is a quantity derived from the distribution of scores from a normative sample and can be defined as the average distance (or deviation) from the mean.
Bias occurs when one interprets or judges others based on their own background and experience and it can result in viewing other practices, expectations and perceptions as inferior or wrong and can result in many different consequences.
Dynamic Assessment is a method of assessment which uses a “test-teach-retest” model and the emphasis is on the individual’s ability to acquire the skills/knowledge being tested after being exposed to instruction.
