Assessment of pragmatic language skills in normal preschool children revealed high reliability in the use of a specially designed taxonomy; a decrease in the inappropriate responses used by children with an increase in age; and generally, inappropriate responses were confined to the same categories across age levels. (Author/CL)

Nine aphasia tests were reviewed using seven psychometric criteria appropriate to standardized tests. The need for test manuals to contain a wide range of psychometric information is discussed, and, in particular, the role of subject description in test standardization is emphasized. (Author/CL)

The study investigated the stability of five type-token ratios (TTRs) in 50-utterance oral language samples of 83 children three, four, and five years of age. Based on the results of this study, TTR measures of the language of young children should not be compared for samples that differ in number of words. (Author/CL)

Describes the original FSI oral interview and the ACTFL/ETS modifications. Discusses: (1) the characteristics of the test, (2) some possible pitfalls in application and their remedies, and (3) some possible long range effects of the oral interview on second language teaching and testing. Provisional generic descriptions for speaking and…

Varying the order of the language arts subtests in the Wide Range Achievement Test did not significantly affect performance of 54 learning disabled students in grades one - nine. (CL)

The paper discusses four studies on the validity of a measure designed to assess prelinguistic communicative behavior. The measure elicits social-communicative behavior through presentation of 10 simple tasks. Both the concurrent and content validity of the elicited tasks were demonstrated through use with infant and toddler-age developmentally…

Four examples of general language performance measures for preschoolers are described to suggest a rationale for test selection. Advantages and limitations are noted for the Houston Test for Language Development, Preschool Language Scale, the Hannah-Gardner Preschool Language Screening Test, and the Test of Early Language Development. (CL)

Article contains a new intelligence test developed for use by teachers and administrators who are or will be working with Spanish-speaking pupils in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. (Editor/GB)

An analysis of Revised Preschool Language Scale (PLS) results on 672 preschool children reveal that one age-level grouping and five individual items appear to be inappropriately placed within the scale. Sex differences for both the auditory comprehension and verbal ability subtests, and for the total scale, were clinically insignificant.…

Discusses steps involved in designing a phonological assessment procedure for Welsh speakers in Britain. Shows that tests used for English speakers will not be adequate to assess bilinguals' competence in Welsh because of major phonological differences between these two languages.(Author/BK)

The usefulness of the grammaticality task as a clinical tool with the language impaired child is discussed by presenting the task as a method of eliciting a language sample. Data are presented supporting the validity of the procedure. (Author/SBH)

Comparison of deaf students' performance on Gallaudet University's English Placement Test found that those students involved in classes using materials from the Electronic Networks for Interaction (ENFI) project, which affords considerable practice in English, performed significantly better or showed significant improvement in some test areas than…

In this article, we use a dialogue format to explore the possible relevance of ideas in the hermeneutic tradition of social science for examining contemporary issues that lie at the intersection of concerns about validity and ethics in language assessment. Specifically, we focus on language testing as a socio-political-cultural practice and…

Grammar is central to language description and a "posteriori" construct validation of language tests consistently identifies grammar as a significant factor in differentiating between score levels and characterizing overall proficiency. However, there is currently no model of grammatical competence robust enough to be operationalized in tests.…

Content-Based Instruction (CBI) may result in improved proficiency in language skills due to the meaningful combination of subject matter and foreign language as a means of communication. This paper shows how university students improved their level of English by means of a content methodology as they attended a course called Topics in Molecular…