Measuring Language Comprehension Development in the Primary Grades

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PROJECT SUMMARY Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder with significant impacts on many aspects of life functioning including literacy, educational attainment, and employment opportunities. Unfortunately, most children with DLD are not identified and do not receive services to improve their outcomes. The long-term goal of this project is to improve the identification of DLD and to contribute to improved systems of support for language and literacy development for all children. We will characterize the developmental trajectory of language comprehension in the primary grades using novel, group-administered measures focusing on skills which (a) undergo significant development in the primary grades, (b) appear frequently in academic settings, (c) are important for reading comprehension, and (d) are appropriate for use with students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The use of group-administered measures promotes feasibility and allows for practical implementation in real-world classrooms. Items measuring syntax, vocabulary, and derivation of novel word meanings will be developed and calibrated to create an across-grade vertical scale of measurement for language performance. Developmental change in language comprehension will be evaluated with three administrations of language comprehension measures per year in grades K and 1 (e.g., Fall, Winter, Spring) and one administration in grade 2. We will evaluate the clinical and educational validity of the novel language comprehension measures by conducting an accelerated cohort design study spanning grades K through 3 and relating them to standardized measures of language and reading abilities that will be administered once in each grade. Clinical utility will be examined using (a) traditional binary classification analyses of sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios, and (b) with cutting-edge continuous measurement models. The latter models will estimate individual change along a continuum, allowing us to evaluate student trends over time rather than simplistic pass-fail criteria, which may be arbitrary and inconsistent. This information will help clinicians identify when children may appear to be achieving adequately but at risk of approaching a clinical threshold, as well as when children receiving language supports are rising back up toward a level of performance more typical of their peers or level of instruction.