The authors contend that children benefit from play as a form of intervention and as a means of fostering their cognitive, social, and physical growth. They review several standardized instruments developed over the last fifty years to assess this benefit of play on child development. They identify twenty-one such play measures, the majority of…

This review aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of standardized instruments that are used to measure pragmatic intervention effects in children with developmental language disorder. Following PRISMA structure, a comprehensive literature research was conducted in five electronic indexing databases: Central, PubMed, Medline, Web of Science…

While many standardized assessment measures exist to track child mental health treatment outcomes, the degree to which such tools have been adequately tested for reliability and validity across race, ethnicity, and class is uneven. This paper examines the corpus of published tests of psychometric properties for the ten standardized measures used…

Panahi and Mohebbi review James Dean Brown's 50-years of research in language testing, curriculum development and research statistics with reference to an impressionistic framework for analysis containing two components with their subcomponents: Annotations (i.e., briefing and implications) and main concepts and themes (i.e., testing and teaching…

Clinical Question: Among school-age children who speak AAE (P), does the use of dialect scoring modifications (I), when compared to traditional scoring methods (C), yield more reliable identification of true language disorders (O)? Method: Structured Review. Study Sources: Google Scholar and ASHAWire. Search Terms: (1) "dialect" OR…

Universal screening of very early school-age children (age 4-7 years) is important for early identification of learning problems that may require enhanced learning opportunity. In this context, use of standardized instruments is critical to obtain valid, reliable, and comparable assessment outcomes. A wide variety of standardized instruments is…

States are increasingly interested in including measures of student achievement growth, or "value- added," in evaluating teachers. Annual state assessments, however, which are the typical measure of student growth, usually cover only reading and math teachers and only in grades 4-8. These state assessments thus cannot …

The Rorschach Inkblot Test has been the focus of intense controversy, significantly impacting clinicians who currently rely on Exner's Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2003) in clinical and forensic settings. This paper evaluates recent empirical CS research to determine whether or not it reveals lack of scientific merit as some skeptics have…

The article reviews Consumer's Guide to Tests in Print, noting its purposes (to provide objective information about technical characteristics of standardized tests); criteria for evaluating standardizaton, reliability, and validity; and its rating system based on evaluations of selected review panel members. (CL)

A brief, nontechnical state-of-the-art review of four common instruments and current practices in the field of scholastic aptitude testing is presented. The instruments include: the 1971 Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT), 1973 Henmon-Nelson Tests of Mental Ability (H-NTMA), 1979 Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) and the 1970 Short Form Test of…

The implications of standardized testing for minority students are explored. Test terminology is described in terms of objectivity, standardization, reliability, and validity. Primarily, however, the paper reviews the objectivity of standardized testing, that is, of those tests which are either norm-referenced or criterion-referenced. The use of…

The paper examines issues, philosophy and guidelines for psychological assessment of the disabled. Focused on are: (1) adjustments in testing procedures and (2) applicability of standard norms with commonly used psychological test instruments for the assessment of ability, interest, and personality. The importance of accurate assessment for…

Arguments against competency testing surface continually, and classic counter-arguments reoccur. Nevertheless, minimum competency testing and other accountability efforts have much public support. Those claiming that the tests are not relevant or do not have predictive validity, also say they are coachable and biased. Answers are given to these…

Provides information on statistical data and jargon so that English department members can more confidently and responsibly identify the inevitable weaknesses and limitations of both tests of writing ability and the research on them. (RL)

Information on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, a major revision of the Vineland Social Maturity Scale, covers authors, publisher, prices, copyright dates and revisions, groups for whom the instrument is intended, forms, purpose and recommended use, dimensions measured, administration, data summation, score interpretation, test…