In this research project, Dr Kirsten Abbot-Smith and colleagues examine the accuracy of methods used to assess language comprehension in children. The findings have important implications for educators, governmental policies regarding education and research.
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About
If a preschool child is delayed in language understanding, he or she is much more likely to end up being diagnosed with a developmental disorder compared to a preschool child who is not delayed in language understanding. For this reason, the language understanding abilities of preschool children should be assessed using an accurate measure. In England, nursery and preschool staff (i.e. early years professionals) assess the language comprehension of children in their care using a format based on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS:UCCS). This measure requires early years professionals (EYPs) to observe children in their care for a period of time and then assign every child to a developmental age band (e.g. 16-26 months) regarding their language understanding by using example achievements from the EYFS guidance provided.
One concern with the above means of assessment is that is quite open to subjective interpretation and the age bands are wide, making it hard to differentiate a child who is performing at an expected level from a child who is delayed.
In the current study, the authors examined the accuracy of the aforementioned assessment method. They did this by investigating whether the resulting scores were closely related (or not) to the test scores from the same group of children, when assessed using the Preschool Language Scale. The latter is a direct and standardised measure of language comprehension, which is designed for use by speech and language therapists.
To see whether early years professionals are per se capable of accurately assessing the language comprehension of young preschool children, the same group of early years professionals also assessed the same children using another measure, the WellComm. When administering the WellComm, early years professionals must assess children individually by (for example) showing them pictures from the manual and asking them certain questions without giving hints or looking at the correct answer.
Research objectives
The primary objectives were:
• To examine which tool completed by early year professionals most accurately detects comprehension delays in preschool children.
• To examine whether early years professionals can per se accurately assess the language comprehension abilities of children in their care.
Programme and methodology
Participants
70 children ranging from 30 to 35 months were assessed.
Tools used
• The language comprehension component of the Preschool Language Scale (PLS) (administered by psychology students).
• EYFS: Unique Child Communication Sheet (EYFS; Department of Education, 2012), administered by the children’s early years professional (keyworker).
• The WellComm, also administered by the children’s early years professional after reading the key instructions in the manual.
Findings
• The EYFS:UCC – i.e. the government-recommended method – did not relate well to the direct measure of language comprehension.
• The WellComm did relate well to the direct measure of language comprehension.
• The WellComm was fairly good at discriminating those children who were ‘typically-developing’ (according to the direct PLS measure) from those who were delayed (according to the direct PLS measure).
Impact
The findings have important implications for educators:
• The findings regarding the WellComm show that early year professionals are in principle capable of assessing child language comprehension if they are given appropriately structured tools to use.
• The WellComm proved to be a better measure of children language comprehension than the types of assessments more commonly used by early years professionals.