Dynamic Assessment for Evaluating Bilingual Children\u27s Potential for Language Development Over Time: a Pilot Study

Dynamic assessment for children of diverse cultural or linguistic backgrounds has been developed within multiple language domains and found as a valid measure for diagnosing a developmental language disorder. However, there remains a need to research its efficacy and stability over time. This study examined the predictive validity of dynamic assessment through a comparison of changes in performance over time as well as the relationship between dynamic assessment scores with grammaticality and mean length of utterance. Using pilot data from a larger project, seven Spanish-English bilingual children’s performance on dynamic assessment tasks of word and rule learning was examined over seven to eight months. Results found that, over time, dynamic assessment of word learning may be a useful measure for general development in language and learning skills, but not specific language tasks. Rule learning dynamic assessment may be less effective tracking these changes due to task difficulty. Future research with larger sample sizes and distinct groups should explore the findings of this study further