Elizabeth D. Peña

Language Sample Analysis in Spanish-Speaking Children: Methodological Considerations

The purposes of this article are (a) to discuss issues related to the selection and development of language assessment procedures for children who speak Spanish and English based on spontaneous language samples and (b) to show how available procedures can be applied to research and clinical aims with these children. Sociolinguistic influences in the language performance of Spanish-speaking children, including patterns of language shift, differences in the amount of exposure to each of a bilinguals languages, and contextual effects of different language-learning environments, are discussed. Methodological issues and effects of codeswitching and dialect are examined concerning use of the Developmental Assessment of Spanish Grammar (DASG), mean length of response in words (MLR-w), mean length of terminable unit (MLTU), and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU-m). Measures of Spanish grammar with diagnostic potential are proposed. Clinical suggestions for the language assessment of Spanish-speaking children with different levels of English proficiency and research implications are discussed.

Task Familiarity: Effects on the Test Performance of Puerto Rican and African American Children.

Two studies compared the performance of Puerto Rican and African American Head Start children on presumably familiar (description) and unfamiliar (one-word labeling) test tasks. Results indicated that children performed significantly better on the familiar test task, and that the familiar task was more sensitive in differentiating children who were typically developing from those with low language ability. Implications for the use of standardized tests, local norms, and dynamic assessment with culturally/linguistically diverse children are discussed.

Cultural/Linguistic Variation in the United States and its Implications for Assessment and Intervention in Speech-Language PathologyAn Introduction

This clinical forum focuses on effective practices in assessment and intervention for culturally/linguistically diverse preschool and school-age children. The contributors are innovative scholars w...