Dynamic Assessment of Diverse Children

Abstract

Dynamic assessment (DA) has been advocated as an alternative and/or supplemental approach to traditional standardized testing with children who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). However, there is great variability across DA methods and applications, as well as limited information concerning which methods and procedures may be best suited to differentiate language disorder from difference. In this tutorial, DA methods are compared with respect to their assessment applications. Next, an assessment protocol recommended for the identification of language disorder versus difference is described. Finally, examples of two Spanish-English bilingual children are used to show how the protocol may be useful to assess children's language-learning potential and to minimize misdiagnosis.