Dynamic Assessment of language

As mentioned earlier, Dynamic Assessment (DA) is an alternative form of testing that involves some form of teaching or mediation, in order to estimate a child’s zone of proximal development and their learning potential. This “mediation” has been expressed in different ways among the different studies of DA in language evaluation, one of which is the already mentioned MLE that will be analysed in the following section.

Although Dynamic Assessment has been implemented as a culturally fair means of cognitive

assessment for more than 50 years (e.g. Budoff & Friedman, 1964; Carlson & Wiedl, 1979; Campione

& Brown, 1987; Feuerstein, 1980; Hessels, 1997; Jensen, Robinson-Zanartu & Jensen, 1992), it was only relatively recently that language researchers have recognized its potential for determining children's language learning potential (e.g., Camilleri & Law, 2007; Guttierez-Clellen, Brown, Conboy, & Robinson-Zanartu, 1998; Olswang & Bain, 1996; Peña, Iglesias & Lidz, 2001).

Children’s performance on DA tasks in areas such as word-learning suggest that when this information was combined with their post-test performance on a related static test, this resulted in more accurate classification of their learning ability in comparison to static tests alone (Peña, Iglesias, & Lidz, 2001;

Ukrainetz, Harpel, Wall, & Koyle, 2000). Specifically, the findings of these studies suggest that with regard to predictive validity, a highly “modifiable” child, i.e., with a high DA score, which also exhibits gains at the static test between different time points, is more likely to have typical abilities

50 compared to a child showing little change on DA and static measures (Hessels, 1997, 2002). This method of testing can, therefore, yield information that could not otherwise be obtained and improve the quality of the delivered intervention.

Furthermore, DA can be particularly useful, when screening children with CLD, as it examines the ability to learn new skills rather than acquired knowledge. Such a DA tool would be administered only in L2 (second language), without including the child’s first language, as this would constitute

“acquired knowledge”, thus, contributing to a more economical evaluation. Overall, it can be concluded that DA is one of the internationally recommended practices for bilingual assessment (Caeser & Kohler, 2007) and has been proposed as an alternative for bilingual assessment administered by Swiss-German SLTs (Frigerio-Sayilir, 2013). A promising example of such an assessment was a screening tool aimed at differentiating language difference from disorder in L2 children, the Dynamic Assessment of Preschoolers’ Proficiency in Learning English (DAPPLE;

Hasson, Camilleri, Jones, Smith & Dodd, 2013). This instrument, which has been basis of the current study and will be mentioned in more detail in the following chapters.

1.10.3.1 DA of Phonology

Despite that the assessment of “stimulability” (i.e., ability to correct erroneous speech-sound

productions when provided with appropriate cues) is often employed by SLTs, DA of phonology has been very little researched. Specific measures of stimulability have been mentioned in a few studies such as those by Tyler (1996) and Glaspey and Stoel-Gammon (2007). Examples of such cues include modelling the target words, providing questions for elicitation, request for imitation or manipulation of the linguistic environment and/or the level of cueing, e.g., elicitation in isolation or connected speech (Glaspey & Stoel-Gammon, 2007). In summary, these studies highlight that DA instruments can provide clinicians with additional information regarding the phonological progress of the child and the selection of treatment. Furthermore, there are indications that stimulability of single phonemes

predicted later phonological development in young German preschoolers (Fox-Boyer & Strutzke, 2018).

Where assessment of stimulability is concerned, special mention should be made of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP; Dodd, Zhu, Crosbie, Holm, & Ozanne, 2002). This instrument includes different subtests of phonology, articulation, and oral-motor skills. The

introductory part of the assessment consists of a short screening, based on which the clinician should decide which of the three subtests to administer. The stimulability of the tested sounds plays a very important role when it comes to the differential diagnosis between articulation disorder, a

51 phonological delay or inconsistent phonological disorder. Part of the DEAP screening (test items and stimulability testing) was adapted and used as a baseline for the DA of phonology of the DAPPLE.

The specific DA, as presented in the DAPPLE, is maybe the only known DA of phonology developed to discriminate children with and without language impairment (Hasson Camilleri, Jones, Smith, &

Dodd, 2013). It consisted of ten pictures from the DEAP. These were used to compare single word production between a group of “referred” L2 children and a non-referred L2 control group. A test-teach-retest format was followed. At pre- and post-test, the children named the 10 pictures twice and during the teaching phase they were being modelled the speech-sounds (in isolation and in syllables), which had been incorrectly produced at pre-test. Despite that the non-referred children were able to produce more correct words than the referred children both at pre- and post-test (Hasson, Camilleri, Jones, Smith, & Dodd, 2013), the referred group showed higher pre- to post-test gains due to the lower pretest scores and the subsequent greater room for improvement.

1.10.3.2 DA of Vocabulary

DA measures of expressive vocabulary were initially developed as a less biased procedure to evaluate pre-schoolers from minority groups (Peña, Quinn, & Iglesias, 1992). These authors used a test-MLE-retest format, where a standardized vocabulary test (EO-WPVT-R; Gardner, 1990) was used as

«static» assessment of expressive vocabulary (pre- and post-test measure). During the MLE process children were taught single word labels through puzzle completion, classification, and story-telling activities. The results showed that both pre- to post-test gains and the MLE modifiability scores¹ discriminated children with and without primary language impairment (Bianco, 2015). Another important study employing the concept of modifiability was that of the already mentioned study of Guttierez-Clellen, Brown, Conboy, & Robinson-Zanartu, (1998); in this study the students were initially tested at a lexical task involving synonyms and antonyms and then were split in a treatment and control group. The former group received a mediation session focusing on improving their ability to generate synonyms while the latter did not. The mediation sessions were based on the already mentioned Mediated Learning Experience, the main principles of which included: 1.Intentionality and Reciprocity (Establishing expectations and rapport with learner), 2. Transcendence (Using examples to bridge learning tasks to learner’s experiences), 3. Meaning (attributing meaning to specific

behaviours), 4. Regulation of behaviour (teaching the learner to adjust own behaviour to improve

1Ratings of the children’s response to mediation, the tester effort and the children’s transfer of newly learnt information to different contexts

52 learning and self-reward), 5. Feelings of competence (organising opportunities for mastery,

competence and supporting attempts of new tasks).

Only few studies have explored receptive vocabulary. To the best of our knowledge, the studies of Camilleri and Law (2007, 2014) are among the few and most recent ones in this domain. They developed a DA of receptive vocabulary aiming at differentiating language difference from language disorder in pre-school aged children, as well as investigating the “fast-mapping” abilities of children in a dynamic context. Fast mapping refers to the process of establishing a link between a new word and its referent following limited exposure (Carey, 1978) and has been shown to serve as a differentiating factor between monolingual children with and without SLI, both on productive (Dollaghan, 1987) and receptive level (Alt, Plante & Creusere, 2006).

During their initial study, Camilleri and Law (2007) administered a DA of receptive-expressive vocabulary to L2 children referred for speech therapy, monolingual referred-children and non-referred controls (both mono- and bilingual). Both groups were tested by means of a standardised instrument of lexical knowledge, the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS; Dunn, Dunn, Whetton, & Burley, 1997). This was followed by a mediation phase targeting words that had not been identified. During this phase, children were encouraged to learn the target words using elimination strategies which relied on contextual information and previous lexical knowledge. As with most DA tasks, the mediation included a series of graduated prompts (Campione & Brown, 1987), and the children were given a

“dynamic weighted score” based on the level of required support. Their ability to retain the newly learned words for both receptive and expressive purposes was assessed at post-test. Although both static and DA were able to discriminate referred from non-referred children (Camilleri & Law, 2007), there was an important difference regarding the performance of both groups. The referred L2

children’s scores on the BPVS (static) were significantly lower than those of the referred monolingual children but the two groups’ performances on the dynamic tasks were comparable.

It appears, therefore, that static vocabulary measures standardized on monolinguals may over-identify L2 children with SLI, whereas DA measures may constitute a more reliable alternative for the

assessment of vocabulary in this population. Also, based on a follow-up study (Camilleri & Law, 2014) it was found that the children’s DA scores of vocabulary learning were more predictive of later changes in receptive vocabulary than the initial BPVS scores, especially as regards the children with low static scores. It appeared that, where the latter group of children is concerned, the combined use of dynamic and static measures could result in increased predictive validity.

The specific DA was adapted and included in the already mentioned Dynamic Assessment of

Preschoolers’ Proficiency in Learning English (DAPPLE; Hasson, Camilleri, Jones, Smith & Dodd,

53 2013). During the mediation phase of the vocabulary task, the referred children required more

assistance cues than the non-referred children to achieve the pre-determined criterion measures and scored significantly lower than the controls on the receptive vocabulary pre-test, as well as the second vocabulary recall task (retention of newly learned words on an expressive level). This specific task was adapted and piloted in German, as is mentioned below.

In conclusion, due to its promising results and time-efficient nature concerning all targeted areas (vocabulary, phonology, and sentence structure), the DAPPLE study was selected as a basis for this study. The following sections sums the exact goals of this project.

1.11 Research goals and questions of current study