Testing Language in the Presence of Dialect: Variation, Risk, and Clinical Validity

项目摘要/摘要 语言学习是各种终身经济和健康结果的关键组成部分(例如，阅读， 就业、长期大学生活和事业成功)。优秀的主流语言能力尤其突出 对标准化语言评估的表现很重要。说非主流方言的孩子 可能尤其受到语言测试中方言差异造成的复杂性的挑战 环境。有大量的工作记录了非洲裔美国儿童面临的这些挑战。 虽然对现有语言测试的修改已经推荐并实施了相当长的一段时间， 这些修改通常包括对受方言影响的项目给予儿童学分或跳过这些项目 所有的项目。虽然这样的安排可以避免无效的惩罚性考试成绩，但这样的安排 还可能阻碍临床诊断和所需的干预服务，从而加剧本已 对有潜在需要的再生障碍性贫血儿童的严重健康担忧。我们的总体目标是了解 从严格测量的角度分析AA儿童在语言和方言方面的弱点。它不是 明确语言的量度可以从方言的量度中分离出来，这是一种 这种语言的变体。我们的中心假设是，现有的语言测试项目衡量至关重要 语言的特征，以及一些项目衡量方言的关键特征，但 语言和方言的因素仍不清楚。从语言学上讲，我们知道语言障碍的许多特征 与AA方言重叠。因此，我们建议对大样本再生障碍性贫血儿童(n= 890)参加过两次标准化英语语言测试项目，且来自谁 获得了自然主义的语言样本。因此，该项目有三个具体目标： 1.评估DELV项目的心理测量学，以衡量与方言相关的程度 功能与主流英语功能。我们假设，就像之前的调查和我们自己的 试行分析，这些项目将符合多个特定于任务的因素，表明 语言表现。 2.在主流英语的标准化测量工具上评估与方言相关的项目反应 语言发展测试。我们假设TELD的条目将显示出很强的有效性 衡量对主流英语和方言反应的理解程度将显示出合理的有效性 用于衡量AA方言所代表的语言规则。 3.比较DELV和TELL语言水平和/或方言的发展因素 到自然主义的语言措施。我们假设，主流英语水平的衡量标准将 显示出较高收敛效度，且方言测量可聚集在特定于规则的子技能中，这有助于 诊断说方言的再障儿童的语言障碍。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Language learning is a key component of various lifelong economic and health outcomes (e.g, reading, employment, long-term college and career success). Strong, mainstream language skills are particularly important to performance on standardized language assessment. Children who speak nonmainstream dialects may be particularly challenged by the complexities created by dialect differences in language testing environments. There is a large body of work documenting these challenges for African American children. While modifications of existing language tests have been recommended and implemented for quite some time, these modifications usually involve either giving children credit for items influenced by dialect or skipping these items altogether. While such accommodations may avoid invalidly punitive test scores, such accommodations also may also impede clinical diagnosis and needed intervention services, thereby exacerbating an already serious health concern for AA children in potential need. Our overall objective is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of language and dialect in AA children from a rigorous measurement perspective. It is not clear that the measurement of language can be separated from the measurement of dialect, which is a variation on that language. Our central hypothesis is that items of existing language tests measure crucial features of language and that some items measure crucial features of dialect, but the relation between the factors of language and dialect remains unclear. Linguistically, we know many features of language impairment overlap with AA dialect. We therefore propose a secondary data analysis of a large sample of AA children (n = 890) who have been administered items of two standardized English language tests, and from whom were obtained naturalistic language samples. Accordingly, this project has three specific aims: 1. Evaluate the psychometrics of the DELV items for the extent to which they measure dialect-relevant features versus mainstream English features. We hypothesize that like prior investigations and our own pilot analyses, that the items will conform to multiple task-specific factors, indicating diverse aspects of language performance. 2. Evaluate the dialect-relevant item responses on a standardized measure of mainstream English, the Test of Language Development. We hypothesize that the items of the TOLD will show strong validity for measuring understanding of mainstream English and that dialect responses will show reasonable validity for measuring the linguistic rules represented by AA dialect. 3. Compare the developed factors of language proficiency and/or dialect from the DELV and the TOLD to naturalistic language measures. We hypothesize that measures of mainstream English proficiency will show high convergent validity and that measures of dialect may cluster in rule-specific subskills, useful to diagnose language disorder in dialect-speaking AA children.