Standardization of Oral Cloze as a Language Assessment Device for Bilingual Hispanic Children
This present study was initiated to determine the feasibility of oral cloze procedures as a language screening for bilingual Hispanic students. If such a procedure were normed, and proven to be both reliable and valid, the resultant assessment device would have potential screening tool as a for determining the presence of a language disorder in the bilingual Hispanic child aged 8 through 10 years. A review of current tests available, and a review of the literature, revealed few language tests designed specifically for and normed on bilingual Hispanic children. Tests available for bilingual Hispanic children over 7 years of age were especially sparse. Most tests in current use were biased due to norming on non-Hispanic monolingual English speaking children. PL 94-142, Education of the Handicapped Act, specifies use of appropriate assessments. The subject sample was comprised of two groups of bilingual Hispanic children aged 8-0 through 10-11 years from north San Diego County schools. The norming group contained 30 subjects, who were randomly selected from ESL program lists of students having attained English fluency, from 5 elementary schools. The second group of subjects were 5 bilingual Hispanic children who had been identified as demonstrating language disorders and were currently receiving language therapy by their school speech-language pathologist. An English and a Spanish oral cloze test consisting of a story at the third grade level in each language were administered to the norming group to determine mean scores and standard deviations. Scores from the norming group were also analyzed to determine if the differences across age groups were significantly greater than the differences within age A sub-group groups of 5 of the original subjects were re-administered the test 4 weeks after the first administration to determine test-retest reliability. The second group of language disordered children were administered the test to determine predictive validity. It was hoped these children would score significantly below their age peers. An analysis of variance showed a statistically significant difference in mean scores across the age groups. Test-retest scores were highly consistent. The language disordered population scored from -2 standard deviations to -4 standard deviations below their age peers. Results indicated that oral cloze procedures have potential for development into a language screening tool for use by speech-language pathologists with bilingual Hispanic students.
Speech Pathology and Audiology, Language Tests -- in infancy & childhood; Hispanic Americans; Language Disorders -- in infancy & childhood
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