LanguageScreen: The development, validation and standardization of an automated language assessment App
Charles Hulme, Josh McGrane, Mihaela D. Duta, Gillian West, Denise Cripps, Sarah Hearne, Maggie Snowling · 2023
Purpose. Oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education and especially for the development of children’s literacy (reading and spelling) skills. It is therefore important for teachers to be able to assess children’s language skills directly, especially if they are concerned about their learning. Methods. We report the development and standardization of a mobile App, LanguageScreen (OxEd and Assessment, 2022), that can be used by education professionals to assess children’s language ability.Methods. The standardization includes data from approximately 350,000 children aged 3:06 to 8:11 years who have been screened using LanguageScreen. for receptive and expressive language skills using LanguageScreen. Rasch scaling was used to select items of appropriate difficulty on a single unidimensional scale.Results. The test is shown to have excellent psychometric properties including high reliability, good fit to the Rasch model and minimal differential item functioning across key student groups. Girls outperformed boys and children with English as an additional language scored less well than monolingual English speakers. Conclusions. LanguageScreen provides a highly reliable and, child-friendly means of identifying and monitoring the progress of children with language difficulties andthat is easy to use. Its use in schools may helpserve to raise teachers’ awareness of variations in language skills and their importance for educational practice.