The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) has been validated as a tool to aid in the diagnosis of Autism; however, given the growing diversity in the United States, the ADI-R must be validated for different languages and cultures. This study evaluates the validity of the ADI-R in a US-based Latino, Spanish-speaking population of 50 children…

With the recent influx of Latinos into the United States, it is essential to understand how their backgrounds and cultures will affect the way they view their children's emotional, social, and educational development. Researchers continue to evaluate the psychometrics of various screening instruments in order to ensure a reliable and valid…

Data on language competence and language use were obtained for 99 Spanish/English bilingual elementary school children (kindergarten through fourth grade) from Albuquerque. The children's language skills were assessed by teachers, interviewers, and the children themselves. The teachers and the children also estimated the extent to which the…

Before a bilingual program can be set up, students who are potential candidates for such a program must be identified. A study was made to investigate the interrelationships of three commonly used measures of "language dominance": the Language Facility Test (LFT), the Home Bilingual Usage Estimate (HBUE), and the Teacher Judgment Questionnaire…

Language Assessment Scales, LAS I, are designed for children in grades K-5. LAS I accommodates ethnic and linguistic differences and provides direct language activities taken from the popular culture of both English- and Spanish-speaking peoples. LAS I consists of two independent tests, one in English and the other in Spanish, presented largely on…

Language Assessment Scales, Level 2 (LAS II) are used to assess the linguistic proficiency of limited-English-speaking or non-English-speaking adolescents. LAS II, like its predecessor, LAS I, provides a picture of oral linguistic proficiency based on a student's performance across four linguistic subsystems: phonemic, lexical, syntactic and…

An ethnographic study of language proficiency in the home and school languages of bilingual children was conducted. From a qualitative sociolinguistic perspective, language proficiency, the relation of linguistic performance to community language use and attitudes, and the correlation of the sociolinguistic findings on language repertoire with…

The Home Bilingual Usage Estimate was designed to measure a person's home-family language usage and to yield a single classification according to a criterion scale. The following classifications were established: English monolingual, English dominant, apparent bilingual, Spanish dominant, or Spanish monolingual. Validity was determined by the…

Translation and cultural adaptation of rating scales are two critical components in testing culturally and/or linguistically heterogeneous populations. Despite the proper use of these scales, challenges typically arise from respondents' language, culture, ratiocination, and characteristics of measurement processes. This study investigated factors…

A 26-item acculturation measure administered to a sample of 1,245 adult Mexican Americans demonstrated high internal reliability for the total sample and for specific sex, educational, and language groups. Among first generation Mexican Americans, those who were younger and male acculturated more rapidly than those who were older and female. (JHZ)

This paper reviews 15 research studies that: (1) examined effects of particular accommodations or groups of accommodations on performance: and (2) employed experimental and quasi-experimental research designs that allowed examination of the effect of the accommodation(s) on English Language Learners (ELLs) and non-ELLs. Studies looked at one or…

This paper focuses on the current developments in regard to the assessment of language proficiency in children who are from non-English speaking backgrounds. Instruments currently used to assess language proficiency for placement in English programs usually fail validity and reliability tests. These tests usually measure formal aspects of language…