Consideration of the influence of English language skills during testing is an understandable requirement for fair and valid cognitive test interpretation. Several professional standards and expert recommendations exist to guide psychologists as they attempt to engage in best practices when assessing English learners (ELs). Nonetheless, relatively…

Student characteristics, their attitude to school and classroom climate can influence teacher-student relationships and adjustment to school. Poor early school experiences are associated with school avoidance, disruptive behaviour, teacher conflict, and suspension and exclusion. The focus, however, remains on the behaviour of individual children,…

General measures of process quality are widely used in the early childhood education (ECE) field. However, the evidence regarding associations between the most widely used process quality measure, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta et al., 2008), and children's school readiness gains during the preschool year is mixed. Using…

This study aimed to profile the sublexical, lexical, and text level language skills, and cognitive processes of a sub-group of children with poor reading comprehension known as poor comprehenders. An assessment protocol was developed to assess each of the components from Perfetti and Stafura's Reading Systems Framework. A comprehensive profile was…

Purpose: This study examined bilinguals' performance on functional executive function map tasks such as the Zoo Map from the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome and the extent to which working memory, set-shifting, and inhibition measures predicted bilinguals' performance on these tasks. Additionally, we explored the utility of…

Purpose: The aims of the study were to explore responses of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) to rich vocabulary instruction and to identify potential factors that contribute to outcomes. Method: Children with DLD participated in a language intervention embedded within a science camp. Using parent and clinician reports,…

Each year the National Reference Test (NRT) reports the proportions of students achieving at or above three key GCSE grades in English and mathematics. The NRT is therefore uniquely placed as a Key Stage 4 assessment which compares performance directly at ability level, to contribute to the evidence on the impact of disruption to education due to…

Purpose: This study aimed to identify child-level characteristics that predict gains in language skills for children with language impairment who were receiving therapy within the public schools. The therapy provided represented business-as-usual speech/language treatment provided by speech-language pathologists in the public schools. Method: The…

The "TOEFL iBT"® test presents test takers with tasks meant to simulate the tasks required of students in English-medium universities. Research establishing the validity argument for the test provides evidence for score interpretation and the use of the test for university admissions and placement. Now that the test has been operational…

The relationships are explored between language and literacy and academic success at 16 years in an English sample of 62 young people with a history of specific language impairment identified at 8 years. Data were available from national assessments at 16 and 14; in addition the pupils had completed a range of standardized tests to examine…

This research takes mathematics as a model for investigating the definitions, identification, classification and characteristics of a group of gifted student related to the notion of "dual-exceptionality". An extensive process using qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted by a multidisciplinary team to develop and implement a…

An investigation of person dimensionality attempted to identify student clusters relating to demographic variables and their core on a university English-as-a-Second-Language placement examination. The two genuine clusters for students with scores in the top or bottom 27 percent could not be accounted for solely on an ability basis. (CB)

Scholastic and personal characteristics of students undertaking exit competency examinations are investigated. Research questions concerned: what the tests measure, whether the tests provide unique information or are duplicating other easily obtained measures, whether it is possible to increase the probability of student success by controlling…

This study addresses the effects of secondary schools and classes on language achievement in Flanders, Belgium. The results of a three-level analysis (students within classes within schools) indicate that the group composition at the class level is very important. In classes with a high average initial cognitive ability or a large proportion of…

A study examined the identification of distinct subgroups of learning-disabled young adults based on their ability to generate written language. Two subgroups of learning-disabled college students, the language strong/visually weak (N=22) and the visually strong/language weak (N=10), were identified based on evaluation of 32 essays. Subjects were…