vdoc.pub_classroom-assessment-for-students-in-special-and-general-education (1) (1)

Language Assessment

Objectives

• Identify how speech and language disorders can affect communication ability.
• Compare and contrast receptive and expressive language.
• Describe the impact that rapid automatized naming (RAN) problems can have on student performance.
• Explain nondiscriminatory assessment of students with cultural and/or linguistic differences.
• Identify second-language-acquisition phenomena that help differentiate between a developmental delay and a cultural difference, which may result in “false positive” identifications.
• Compare and contrast the two types of language proficiencies: basic interpersonal communication skill (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP).
• Identify the problems associated with many tests used to evaluate students from a minority background.
• Describe necessary adjustments to ensure that culturally and linguistically diverse students are evaluated fairly and nondiscriminatorily.

Introduction to Speech and Oral Language Assessment

• Developing oral language skills is a complex process.
• Oral language hasn't received as much attention as other school subjects because it is more difficult to measure.
• Limited assessment procedures exist for oral language compared to other basic skills like reading, math, and written language (Polloway, Smith, & Miller, 2003).
• Increasing emphasis is being placed on testing oral communication skills in federal and state core curriculum content assessments.
• Teachers should understand formal assessments that provide age and grade equivalencies, stanines, and percentage rankings to compare their students with peers and determine eligibility for classification.
• Teachers need to incorporate informal evaluation procedures to continually assess and monitor progress in oral language development and the status of instructional goals.
• Assessing language skills involves observing verbal and nonverbal behavior, including speech (articulation, voice, and fluency) and language (content, form, use, receptive, expressive, and inner language).
• The complexity of language acquisition and the many elements of expressive communication skills that are used to listen, speak, read, and write requires assessment tools and experiences that go beyond the limits of standardized, objective assessments.
• Informal assessment opportunities are needed to meaningfully evaluate students’ language skills since standardized tests only measure a small portion of what children have learned and understood.

Figure 5–1: Guidelines for Observing Oral Communication

• Can the student communicate as a speaker?
• Does the student seem to understand what is being said?
• Does the student understand nonverbal communication (e.g., foot tapping, head nodding)?
• Does the student use nonverbal means to communicate (e.g., gestures, facial signals)?
• Does the student appear to be fully concentrating on the speaker (e.g., attend to faces, maintain eye contact, watch lip movements)?
• Does the student understand oral communication when the speaker is not in full view (e.g., when back is turned, when listening to a taped discussion)?
• Does the student articulate clearly?
• Is the student’s speech tempo appropriate for the situation?
• Does the student appear to be exerting excessive energy to produce speech (e.g., head jerking, facial grimaces, erratic breathing)?
• Does the student take time to think before responding?
• Is the student competent in the use of words and grammar (e.g., correct use of objects, actions, events, correct tense, and word usage)?
• Does the student parrot or paraphrase what has been said rather than express original thoughts?
• Is the student’s word usage appropriate for the context of the discussion?
• Can the student communicate appropriately in different contexts (e.g., classroom, playground, library)?
• Does the student communicate ideas clearly and thoroughly enough?
• Can the student distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information?
• Does the student’s communication demonstrate a variety of possibilities and perspectives?
• Are the student’s responses mainly self-critical or derogatory?
• Can the student assume the role or viewpoint of the speaker?
• Does the student’s oral language difficulty, if present, affect reading, writing, and/or speaking activities?

Tips for Teachers

• Be alert for symptoms that warrant speech or language evaluation, or both.
• Does the child have difficulty:
  • Clearly pronouncing words?
  • Speaking in a normal flow, rhythm, or both?
  • Using his or her voice effectively?
  • Speaking in an age-appropriate manner (is there evidence of immature or delayed speech patterns)?
  • Labeling thoughts or objects?
  • Putting thoughts into words?
  • Comprehending questions and following commands?

Speech and Language Disorders

• Speech and language disorders can affect how children talk, understand, analyze, and process information
• Speech disorders affect the clarity, voice quality, and fluency of a child’s spoken words.
• Language disorders can affect a child’s ability to hold meaningful conversations, understand others, problem-solve, read, comprehend, and express thoughts through spoken or written word.
• Approximately six million children under 18 have a speech or language disorder with boys making up two-thirds of this population (American-Speech-Language Hearing Association, 2010).
• Almost one and one-half million children have received services for speech or language disorders under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
• This number represents a 10.5% increase from a decade ago (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2010).

Clarifying Terms

• Developmental disorders: concerns that show up as the child grows and develops.
• Acquired disorders: referred to as childhood aphasia, concerns that occur as a result of a known injury (e.g., head injury, stroke) or other occurrences (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2010).

Figure 5–2: General Indicators of Developmental Language Disorders

• Absence of words by age 18 months.
• Absence of two-word phrases that have a message by age 2.
• Inappropriate responses to questions.
• Echoing of speech.
• Undeveloped play skills.
• Poor understanding or use of adjectives and prepositions.
• Word-finding problems.
• Depends on gestures to follow directions.
• Requires frequent repetition of directions.
• Poor social interaction with peers (does not get along with other children).
• Poor school performance.
• Difficulty relating an extended narrative, explaining something or retelling a story, centering on a topic, and chaining a sequence of events together in a logical order.
• Narrative speech incoherent or difficult to follow.
• Inability to describe the “plot” in an action picture.
• Poor communication skills in school settings (e.g., interacting with the teacher, participating in class discussions, working in groups with other students).
• Difficulty role-playing different communication scenarios, discussing stories and points of view of various characters, understanding how the characters are feeling and why they are reacting a certain way; and explaining how different characters’ actions affect what happens in the story.
• Difficulty understanding and using vocabulary (semantics) and understanding and using grammar (syntax).
• Difficulty understanding and answering both yes-no (e.g., Is your name Bob?) and wh-questions (e.g., What do you do with a hammer?).
• Difficulty understanding extended speech, such as listening to a short story or factual passage and answering fact-based (the answers are in the passage) and inferential (the student must arrive at a conclusion based on information gathered from the reading) questions about the material.
• Inability to follow directions that increase in both length and complexity.
• Inability to tell an extended story (language sample) both verbally and in written form.
• Inability to tell the steps needed to complete a task or tell a story, centering on a topic and chaining a sequence of events together.
• Poor recall of words needed to express ideas.
• Inability to express himself or herself in complete sentences, telegraphic sentences or phrases, or single words.
• Speech is slurred, difficult to understand, or unintelligible.
• Limited social communication skills (pragmatic language).
• Inability to interpret or explain jokes, sarcastic comments, absurdities in stories or pictures (e.g., What is strange about a person using an umbrella on a sunny day?).
• Lacks proficiency in initiating conversation and conversational topics, taking turns during a discussion, and expressing thoughts clearly using a variety of words and grammatical constructions.
• Inability to clarify communication when conversational partner does not understand.

Determining Typical Language Development

• To determine whether a student is experiencing speech and/or language delays, a basic understanding of normal development and expected language behaviors for each age is necessary, recognizing that children develop at different rates.
• Each child is unique and has his or her own rate of development.
• Children typically do not master skills in a given category until they reach the upper age in each age range for that category.
• Failing to accomplish a specific skill at the expected age level or to master all skills in a specific age range category does not mean the child has a disorder.
• The critical issue is whether the child is demonstrating continuous language growth (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2010).

Figure 5–3: Normal Language Development Chart

Hearing and Understanding

• Birth–3 Months
  • Startles to loud sounds.
  • Quiets or smiles when spoken to.
  • Seems to recognize voices and quiets if crying.
• 4 Months–6 Months
  • Moves eye in direction of sounds.
  • Responds to changes in tone of voice.
  • Notices toys that make sounds.
  • Pays attention to music.
• 7 Months–1 Year
  • Enjoys games such as peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake.
  • Turns and looks in direction of sounds.
  • Listens when spoken to.
  • Recognizes words for common items like cup, shoe, book, juice.
  • Begins to respond to requests (e.g., “Come here,” or “Want more?”).
• 1–2 Years
  • Points to a few body parts when asked.
  • Follows simple commands and understands simple questions (“Roll the ball,” “Kiss the baby,” “Where’s your shoe?”).
  • Listens to simple stories, songs, and rhymes.
  • Points to pictures in a book when named.
• 2–3 Years
  • Understands differences in meaning (“go-stop,” “in-on,” “big-little,” “up-down”).
  • Follows two requests (“Get the book and put it on the table.”).
  • Listens to and enjoys hearing stories for longer periods of time.
  • Often asks for or directs attention to objects by naming them.
• 3–4 Years
  • Hears you when you call from another room.
  • Hears television or radio at the same loudness level as other family members.
  • Answers simple “Who?”, “What?”, “Where?” and “Why?” questions.
• 4–5 Years
  • Pays attention to a short story and answers simple questions about it.
  • Hears and understands most of what is said at home and in school.

Talking

• Birth–3 Months
  • Makes pleasure sounds (cooing, gooing).
  • Cries differently for different needs.
  • Smiles when sees people.
  • Increases or decreases sucking behavior in response to sound.
• 4 Months–6 Months
  • Babbling sounds more speech-like with many different sounds, including p, b, and m.
  • Chuckles and laughs.
  • Vocalizes excitement and displeasure.
  • Makes gurgling sounds when left alone and when playing with you.
• 7 Months–1 Year
  • Babbling has both long and short groups of sounds (e.g., “tata upup bibibibi”).
  • Uses speech or noncrying sounds to get and keep attention.
  • Uses gestures to communicate (waving, holding arms to be picked up).
  • Imitates different speech sounds.
  • Has one or two words (hi, dog, dada, mama) around first birthday, although sounds may not be clear.
• 1–2 Years
  • Says more words every month.
  • Uses some one- or two-word questions (“Where kitty?” “Go bye-bye?” “What’s that?”).
  • Puts two words together (“more cookie,” “no juice,” “mommy book”).
  • Uses many different consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
• 2–3 Years
  • Has a word for almost everything.
  • Uses two or three words to talk about and ask for things.
  • Uses k, g, f, t, d, and n sounds.
  • Speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time.
• 3–4 Years
  • Talks about activities at school or friends’ homes.
  • People outside of the family usually understand the child’s speech.
  • Uses a lot of sentences that have four or more words.
  • Usually talks easily without repeating syllables or words.
• 4–5 Years
  • Uses sentences that give lots of details (“The biggest peach is mine.”).
  • Tells stories that stick to topic.
  • Communicates easily with other children and adults.
  • Says most sounds correctly (except a few like l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, th).
  • Says rhyming words.
  • Names some letters and numbers.
  • Uses the same grammar as the rest of the family.

Distinguishing Between Typical and Atypical Oral Language

• Although the order of the stages of language development is generally the same for all children, due to the extremely complex nature of language, there can be significant variation in the rate at which children, especially those with disabilities, develop expressive and receptive language skills.
• A slowdown in language development may occur while children are learning other major skills, such as walking, when their concentration and energy are focused on gross motor development.
• Development can be affected by the amount and kind of language children are exposed to, such as when two languages are spoken at home and they are trying to learn two sets of vocabulary, process two sets of speech sounds, and understand two sets of grammatical rules.
• Language skills are also affected by how people interact with and respond to them.
• When the child’s attempts to communicate are reinforced by eye contact, acknowledged, and expanded on (with comments such as, “Oh yes, and what else happened?”), this child’s language skills develop faster than the skills develop for the child whose communication attempts receive little or no response.

Figure 5–4: Patterns of Development

Indicators of a Language-Learning Disorder

• The co-occurrence of language disorders and learning disabilities is quite high; they may be manifestations of the same underlying problem, or they may be the same problem defined differently at different times during an individual’s lifetime.
• Difficulty in language development can result in delays in learning to listen, speak, read, or write.
• Problems can occur in the production, comprehension, and awareness of language at the sound, syllable, word, sentence, and discourse levels.
• Students who have difficulty with reading and written language skill development often experience problems using language skills for other thinking, learning, and communication tasks.
• Children with language disorders often do not achieve well in academic areas, particularly reading.
• Many have difficulty understanding and expressing language, do not perform well on tests, do not relate well to peers due to misunderstanding social cues, tend to use poor judgment, and have poor attendance because of school avoidance.

Figure 5–5: Communication Skills Checklist

• Does the student have:
  • A family history of delayed speech-language development or literacy problems?
  • Difficulty processing sounds in words?
  • Difficulty finding the words needed to express basic thoughts or ideas or more complex explanations or descriptions?
  • Difficulty with the comprehension of spoken and/or written language, including classroom handouts and textbooks for older children?
  • Delayed vocabulary development?
  • Problems with the understanding and use of grammar in sentences?
  • Difficulty remembering numbers and letters in sequence, questions, and directions?
  • Difficulty with organization and planning, including drafting school papers and longer-term school projects for older students?
  • Problems expressing ideas coherently, as if the words needed are on the tip of the tongue but won’t come out, and, consequently, utterances are vague and difficult to understand (e.g., using unspecific vocabulary, such as thing or stuff, to replace words that cannot be remembered)?
  • Are filler words like “um” used to take up time while a word is being retrieved from memory?
  • Difficulty learning new vocabulary presented orally (e.g., taught in lectures or lessons) or in print (e.g., in books)?
  • Difficulty understanding questions and following directions that are heard or read?
  • Difficulty recalling numbers in sequence (e.g., telephone numbers and addresses)?
  • Problems understanding and retaining the details of a story’s plot or a classroom lecture?
  • A pattern of slow reading and reduced comprehension of the material?
  • Problems learning words to songs and rhymes?

Speech Assessment

• Speech disorders are generally grouped into three categories: articulation, voice, and fluency disorders.
• The speech and language therapist typically develops and administers specialized tests to determine the type and severity of students’ spoken language problem, provides the remedial program (therapy), and writes the speech and language individualized education plan (IEP).
• Classroom teachers need to be familiar with the types and characteristics of spoken language disorders so they can identify students who need to be referred to the speech and language therapist for screening.
• Teachers may also need to work closely with the therapist to implement the classroom component of the speech IEP and to informally assess and monitor progress.

Figure 5–6: Screening for Speech Disorders

• Is the student’s speech characterized by any of the following?
  • Articulation Problems
    • Substitutions—replacing a letter sound with a different sound(s)
    • Distortions—saying the letter sound incorrectly
    • Additions—placing an extra sound(s) in words
  • Fluency Problems
    • Repetitions—uncontrolled repeating of sounds, syllables, or words
    • Prolongations—extending a portion of a word (“b-b-b-black”)
    • Blocks—difficulty getting sounds out at the beginning or end of a word
    • Students may use “starters,” which involves substituting words or phrases that they can express more fluently.
    • They may also use circumlocution, which is a convoluted manner of talking around the feared word(s), avoiding the word(s) that they know will cause them to stutter.
    • Children may also use hand or head gestures as they struggle to express their thoughts orally.
  • Voice Problems
    • Intensity—excessively loud or low volume of speaking
    • Frequency—pitch that is inappropriately high or low
    • Hypernasality—excessive amount of air passing through the nasal cavity
    • Denasality—insufficient amount of air passing through the nasal cavity (students sound like they have a cold).
    • Hoarseness—strained quality of voice (deep and harsh sounding)

Articulation Disorders

• Speech articulation is the pronunciation of individual and combined sounds assessed in single words and in conversation.
• Most speech sound errors fall into one of three categories:
  • Omissions (e.g., “poon” for “spoon”).
  • Substitutions (e.g., “wabbit” for “rabbit”).
  • Distortions (language that sounds like the intended sounds but is not exact).
• Another less common type of error is the addition of sounds (e.g., “buhlack” for “black”).
• The type of error affects how well the child is able to be understood, referred to as intelligibility.
• Generally, it is more difficult to understand children who omit sounds than those who distort sounds (Bankson, Bernthal, & Hodson, 2004).
• It is important to differentiate cultural differences in speech from articulation errors.

Voice Disorders

• A voice disorder occurs when the pitch, loudness, or quality of the sound calls attention to itself rather than to what the speaker is saying.
• A voice disorder tends to hamper communication, producing a vocal output that is perceived to be markedly different from what is expected for someone of a given age, sex, and cultural background (Robinson & Crowe, 2001).
• Misusing the voice—such as talking too loudly, using a pitch level that is too high or too low, breathing improperly, or smoking excessively—can also result in voice problems.
• The most common voice problems from vocal abuse are vocal fold nodules and polyps, although voice disorders can also occur without apparent cause.

Fluency Disorders

• Normal speech is characterized by interruptions in flow.
• When these characteristics become chronic, and the speaker’s intense effort to speak in a smooth, fluent manner continually results in speech flow disruptions, a diagnosis of fluency disorder is made.
• Stuttering is the most common and recognized type of fluency problem.
• Although only about 1% of the population is considered to be stutterers, teachers and school personnel need to be aware and sensitive to students who may become dysfluent.
• Early diagnosis and intervention are critical if chronic stuttering is to be avoided.
• When teachers note early symptoms of dysfluency, they need to refer the child to a speech and language pathologist and be sensitive to the emotional-social impact that stuttering can cause, especially when peers begin to call attention to and tease these children.

Figure 5–7: Characteristics of Normal vs. At-Risk Speech Fluency

• When persistent stuttering goes untreated, it often results in a lifelong disorder that affects the individual’s ability to communicate, develop positive self-feelings, and pursue certain educational and employment opportunities (Conture, 2001).

Clarifying Terms

• Dialect: a variation in phonology, vocabulary, and syntax from the standard or customary use of a language.

Language Assessment

• Language problems can vary in scope and severity.
• Some students exhibit severe language disabilities in the classroom, including the absence of language, nonspontaneous acquisition, and severe language delay or distortion (Polloway, Smith, & Miller, 2003).
• Teachers need to be cognizant of the various types and degrees of communication problems so they can develop a remedial plan or, when necessary, refer to the professional specialist for more serious communication problems early as possible.
• "Children who are significantly delayed in establishing a vocabulary and learning the grammar (syntax) for the production of their oral code are also likely to be at high risk for learning to read”(Eisenson, 1990, p. 419).

Receptive and Expressive Language Assessment

• Various factors can influence the acquisition of oral language and significantly affect the process of learning to read.
• Two critical areas are expressive and receptive language.
• Receptive language skills involve understanding through listening or reading; expressive language skills involve language used in speaking and writing.
• Receptive skills are more advanced than expressive abilities in most individuals since people understand more words than they use in speech and are able to read more words than they can write (Jennings et al., 2006).

Figure 5–8: Screening Assessment for Language Skills

• Score:
  • 27 or less: Satisfactory performance
  • 28–35: Child should be watched and language abilities checked on periodically
  • 36 or more: Thorough evaluation needed

Assessing Language Samples

• Teachers can compare the language sample of the target student with samples of two other students of the same age, sex, and linguistic background.
• Students’ speech and language skills are assessed not only for their ability to articulate but also for their ability to expand on these articulated ideas.
• Expansion includes both the length of utterances and the nature of words used (Polloway, Smith, & Miller, 2003).
• Skills such as verbal and communicative competence, articulation, word retrieval, vocabulary usage, syntactic structures, and fluency can be assessed.

Testing Rapid Automatized Naming

• Some students have language delays referred to as rapid automatized naming (RAN), or word-finding, problems.
• Children with RAN problems cannot quickly and automatically name objects and are slow to recall the correct words — an accurate predictor of reading and learning disabilities (Lerner & Johns, 2009, p. 354).
• Slowness in naming is often due to memory retrieval problems, which affect the ability to access verbal information (DeJong & Vrielink, 2004).
• As a result, they often become frustrated and do not want to read.
• Subsequently, they fall behind in vocabulary and content, tend not to keep pace with their peers, and their homework and test completion suffers (CEC, 2003).
• RAN assessments measure response time or rapid retrieval for various formats of visual stimuli (e.g., objects, colors, letters, numbers, or a combination of these stimuli).
• The purpose of these tests is to assess the student’s ability to sustain attention to identify and name symbols, rapidly name and discriminate among symbols, rapidly retrieve verbal labels, and rapidly articulate words.

Assessment for Language Content: Semantics

Assessing for Language Form: Syntax

Assessing for Language Use: Pragmatics

Assessing Language Content, Form, and Use

• Content of language, also referred to as semantics, involves the language code—the ideas or concepts used to communicate.
  • Semantics deal with ideas, the relationships among ideas, and the words that are used to identify these ideas.
  • Content covers vocabulary use, the ability to retrieve or recall the appropriate word, the ability to use figurative language (idioms, metaphors, similes, and proverbs), and the ability to use these words to communicate fluently.
• Form, also referred to as syntax, is the structured rule system.
  • Phonology refers to the smallest speech sounds and the rules for combining and patterning speech sounds.
  • Morphology is the rule structure of words and word forms, the affixes that change the meaning of base words such as prefixes (e.g., dis-, pre-, bi-), suffixes (e.g., -ance, -able, -ment), and inflected endings of words (e.g., -’s, -ed, -ing).
• Use, also referred to as pragmatics, is the function or purpose of oral communication.

Figure 5–11: Assessment of Content, Form, and Use

• To