1. Chapter 14
Using Measures of Oral and Written
Language

2. Assessing Language Competence
• When assessing language skills, it is important
to break language down into processes and
measure each one
– Language appears in written and verbal format
• Comprehension
• Expression
– Normal levels of comprehension ≠ normal
expression
– Normal levels of expression ≠ normal
comprehension

3. Terminology: Language as Code
• Phonology:
– Hearing and discriminating word sounds
• Semantics:
– Understanding vocabulary, meaning, and concepts
• Morphology and syntax:
– Understanding the grammatical structure of
language
• Supralinguistics and pragmatics:
– Understanding a speaker’s or writer’s intentions

4. Assessing Oral and Written Language
• Why?
– Ability to converse and express thoughts is desirable
– Basic oral and written language skills underlie higher-order
skills
• Considerations in assessing oral language
– Cultural diversity
• Differences in dialect are different, but not incorrect
– Disordered production of primary language or dialect should be
considered when evaluating oral language
• Are the norms and materials appropriate?
– Developmental considerations
• Be aware of development norms for language acquisition

5. Assessing Oral and Written Language
• Considerations in assessing written language
– Form and Content
• Penmanship
• Spelling
• Style
– May be best assessed by evaluating students’
written work and developing tests (vocabulary,
spelling, etc.) that parallel the curriculum

6. Methods for Observing Language
Behavior
• Spontaneous language
– Record what child says while talking to an adult or playing with
toys
– Prompts may be used for older children
– Analyze phonology, semantics, morphology, syntax, and
pragmatics
• Imitation
– Require children to repeat words, phrases, or sentences
produced by the examiner
– Valid predictor of spontaneous production
– Standardized imitation tasks often used in oral language
assessment instruments
• Elicited language
– A picture stimulus is used to elicit language

7. Methods for Observing Language
Behavior
Advantages and disadvantages of each method
Spontaneous
•Advantages
• Most natural indicator
of everyday language
performance
• Informal testing
environment
•Disadvantages
• Not a standardized
procedure (more
variability)
• Time-intensive
Imitation
•Advantages
• Comprehensive
• Structured and
efficient administration
•Disadvantages
• Auditory memory may
affect results
• Hard to draw
conclusions from
accurate imitations
• Boring for child
Elicited language
•Advantages
• Interesting and
efficient
• Comprehensive
•Disadvantages
• Difficult to create
valid
measurement
tools

8. Specific Oral and Written Language Tests
• Test of Written Language – Fourth Edition
(TOWL-4)
• Test of Language Development: Primary –
Fourth Edition (TOLD-P:4)
• Test of Language Development: Intermediate
– Fourth Edition (TOLD-I:4)
• Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS)

9. Test of Written Language – Fourth
Edition (TOWL-4)
• General
– Norm-referenced
– Designed to assess written language competence
of students between the ages of 9 and 17
– Two formats
• Contrived
• Spontaneous

10. TOWL-4
•Contrived
Subtests
– Vocabulary
– Spelling
– Punctuation
– Logical sentences
– Sentence combining
• Spontaneous
– Contextual conventions
– Story composition

11. TOWL-4
• Scores
– Raw scores can be converted to percentile or
standard scores
– Three composite scores and one overall score
• Contrived writing
• Logical sentences
• Spontaneous writing
• Overall writing

12. TOWL-4
• Norms
– Three age ranges: 9-11, 12-14, and 15-17
– Distribution approximates nationwide school-age population for
2005; however, insufficient data are presented to confirm this
• Reliability
– Variable data for internal consistency, stability, and inter-scorer
agreement
– 2 composites reliable for making educational decisions about
students
• Validity
– Content, construct, and predictive validity evidence is presented
– Validity of inferences drawn from data is somewhat unclear

13. Test of Language Development:
Primary – Fourth Edition (TOLD-P:4)
• General
– Norm-referenced, untimed, individually
administered test
– 4-8 years of age
– Used to:
• Identify children significantly below their peers in oral
language
• Determine specific strengths and weaknesses
• Document progress in remedial programs
• Measure oral language in research studies

14. TOLD-P:4
• Subtests
– Picture vocabulary
– Relational vocabulary
– Oral vocabulary
– Syntactic understanding
– Sentence imitation
– Morphological completion
– Word discrimination
– Word analysis
– Word articulation
• Scores
– Raw scores converted to:
• Age equivalents, percentile
ranks, subtests scaled scores,
and composite scores
– Composite scores
• Listening
• Organizing
• Speaking
• Grammar
• Semantics
• Spoken language

15. TOLD-P:4
• Norm population
– 1,108 individuals across 4 geographic regions
– Sample partitioned according to the 2007 census
• Reliability
– Adequate estimates of reliability
• Coefficient alpha
• Test-retest
• Scorer difference
• Validity
– Adequate content, construct, and criterion-related
validity evidence

16. Test of Language Development:
Intermediate – Fourth Edition (TOLD-I:4)
• General
– Norm-referenced, untimed, individually
administered test
– 8-17 years of age
– Used to:
• Identify children significantly below their peers in oral
language
• Determine specific strengths and weaknesses
• Document progress in remedial programs
• Measure oral language in research studies

17. TOLD-I:4
• Subtests
– Sentence combining
– Picture vocabulary
– Word ordering
– Relational vocabulary
– Morphological
comprehension
– Multiple meanings
• Norm population
– 1,097 students from 4
geographic regions
– Sample partitioned according
to the 2007 census
• Scores
– Raw scores converted to:
• Age equivalents, percentile
ranks, subtests scaled scores,
and composite scores
– Composite scores
• Listening
• Organizing
• Speaking
• Grammar
• Semantics
• Spoken language

18. TOLD-I:4
• Reliability
– Adequate estimates of
reliability
• Coefficient alpha
• Test-retest
• Scorer difference
• Validity
– Adequate content,
construct, and criterion-related
validity evidence

19. Oral and Written Language Scales
(OWLS)
• General
– Norm referenced, individually administered
assessment of receptive and expressive language
– 3-21 years of age
• Subtests
– Listening comprehension
– Oral expression
– Written expression

20. OWLS
• Norm population
– 1,985 students matched to 1991 census data
• Scores
– Raw scores converted to:
• Standard scores, age equivalents, normal-curve
equivalents, percentiles, and stanines
• Scores generated for each subtest, an oral language
composite, and for a written language composite

21. OWLS
• Reliability
– Sufficient internal and test-retest reliability for
screening, but not for making important decisions
about individual students
• Validity
– Adequate criterion-related validity