to 6-Year-Old Children's Language Abilities: A Computer-Based Assessment

58 Pages·2014·1.13 MB·English

Screening 3- to 6-Year-Old
Children's Language
Abilities: A Computer-Based
Assessment

Presenters: Jill de Villiers, Aquiles Iglesias,
With: Mary Wilson, Roberta Golinkoff, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek,
Max Freeman, Athulya Aravind, Jennifer Damonte, Katherine Ridge,
Neha Mahajan, and Megan Johanson
Need for a New Assessment
Our assessment goals:

a quick and efficient language screener

in both English and Spanish

that is

reliable,

valid, and

culturally neutral.
Why?

The literature on language development emphasizes that
assessing vocabulary is not enough to assess language;
grammar is critical too.

We need to pay attention to whether the child can learn new
words and structures, not just assess what they have
already learned.

Practitioners need a quick but deep assessment, sensitive to
changes in the ages range 3;0-5;11, for screening, for
progress monitoring, and for research.

Assessments should not neglect the needs of bilingual
children, especially the growing number of ELLs in our
preschools who are also learning Spanish.
Components of the New
Language Assessment
1. Tests vocabulary and grammar knowledge (6
subtests of each).
2. Assesses both product (8 subtests) and process
(4 subtests).
3. Easy and automatic for anyone to administer.
4. Examines language comprehension.
5. Automatic scoring and reports
6. Designed for both English monolingual and
Spanish-English bilingual children.
Overview of the Tryout
Monolingual Assessment
PRODUCT PROCESS
KNOWN NOUNS FAST MAPPING NOUNS

KNOWN VERBS FAST MAPPING ADJECTIVES
VOCAB
PREPOSITIONS
CLAUSAL CONNECTORS
WH-QUESTIONS SYNTACTIC
BOOTSTRAPPING OF NOVEL

VERBS
GRAMMAR
PAST AUXILIARY AND COPULA CONVERTING ACTIVE TO
PASSIVE STRUCTURE
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
EMBEDDED CLAUSES
Participants – First Tryout

3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds

3 geographically diverse testing locations in the N.E.

English monolingual (N= 300) and Spanish-English
bilingual children (N= 76)

Mid and low SES populations
Known Nouns

Assesses the product of learning:
children’s knowledge of nouns.

Example: “Show me the hinge.”
Known Nouns Performance
100
**
*
80 **

t
c
e
r
r 60
o
C

t
n
e 40
c
r
e
P
20
0
3 4 5
Age
* p < .01
** p < .001
Chance = 25%
Fast Mapping Novel Nouns

Assesses the process of learning new nouns and
extending these new words to diverse objects.

Example: “The fep is blue. Show me the blue fep.”
Fast Mapping Novel Nouns
“Can you show me another fep?”