Using a story-based dynamic assessment to identify Developmental Language Disorder in children learning English as an additional language

发展性语言障碍(DLD)会对儿童的教育和社会进步产生重大影响。及早识别DLD对于确保儿童尽快和有效地获得他们所需的额外语言支持是至关重要的。然而，在将英语作为另一种语言学习(EAL)的儿童中诊断DLD可能特别具有挑战性，因为他们的英语水平在测试时仍在发展中，而且通常没有针对英语和他们的第一语言的标准化评估工具，也没有会说这些第一语言的从业者。作为另一种选择，建议的研究侧重于开发一种前测-教-后动态评估(DA)，以测试儿童学习语言的潜力，而不是关注目前的能力。这种方法较少受到先前语言经验引起的测试成绩差异的偏见，并允许不了解儿童第一语言的从业者对儿童进行评估。这项研究旨在将患有DLD的EAL儿童与其典型发育的同龄人区分开来，基于他们使用英语故事学习“故事语法”、情感词汇和情感韵律的能力。在教学过程中的可调性，以及前测和后测的表现，将对典型发育儿童和那些被认为有DLD风险的儿童进行比较。这项研究的结果将直接关系到向讲英语的人提供公平的服务

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) can have a major impact on a child's educational and social progress. Early identification of DLD is essential to ensure that children receive the extra language support that they require as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, diagnosis of DLD in children learning English as an additional language (EAL) can be particularly challenging, as their English proficiency is still developing at the time of testing and there are often no assessment tools standardised for both English and their first languages, nor practitioners who can speak these first languages. As an alternative, the proposed study focuses on the development of a pretest-teach-posttest Dynamic Assessment (DA) that tests a child's potential to learn language rather than focusing on present ability. This approach is less biased by test performance differences arising from previous language experience and allows practitioners without knowledge of the child's first language to assess the child. The study aims to distinguish EAL children with DLD from their typically-developing peers based on their capacity to learn "story grammar", emotional vocabulary and affective prosody using stories in English. Modifiability during teaching, as well as pretest and posttest performance, will be compared for typically developing children and those thought to be at risk for DLD. The outcomes of this study will be of direct relevance to the provision of equitable services to EAL speakers