Evaluating Language Assessments with Members of the Travelling Community

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Quinn, Adeline^{; *} | Leahy, Margaret M. | McTiernan, Kathleen

Affiliations: Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Adeline Quinn, Speech and Language Terapy Department, Stewarts Care, Palmerstown, Dublin 20. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Background and objective:The Irish Travelling Community is a cultural group using a unique dialect – Traveller English. It has been established that some standardized, norm-referenced language measures are biased against culturally and linguistically diverse populations. In this study, the achievement of Traveller children on standardized language measures and on processing-dependent measures is compared with achievement of children from the Settled community on the same measures. Method:Twenty children aged 6–10 years, 10 each from Travelling and Settled communities, were assessed using the CELF-3 UK, and two processing-dependent measures to assess aspects of language development. Results and conclusions:Results indicate that Traveller children scored significantly lower than Settled children on the standardized language measures. In contrast, the use of processing-dependent measures showed few inter-group differences. The recommendation is that processing-dependent measures be used in addition to standardized measures to increase the validity of language assessment of Traveller children.

Keywords: Travelling Community, language assessment bias, processing-dependent measures

DOI: 10.3233/ACS-2011-18106

Journal: Journal of Clinical Speech and Language Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 41-56, 2011