Using a story-based dynamic assessment to identify Developmental Language Disorder in children learning English as an additional language

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) can have a major impact on a child's educational and social progress. Early identification of DLD is essential to ensure that children receive the extra language support that they require as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, diagnosis of DLD in children learning English as an additional language (EAL) can be particularly challenging, as their English proficiency is still developing at the time of testing and there are often no assessment tools standardised for both English and their first languages, nor practitioners who can speak these first languages. As an alternative, the proposed study focuses on the development of a pretest-teach-posttest Dynamic Assessment (DA) that tests a child's potential to learn language rather than focusing on present ability. This approach is less biased by test performance differences arising from previous language experience and allows practitioners without knowledge of the child's first language to assess the child. The study aims to distinguish EAL children with DLD from their typically-developing peers based on their capacity to learn "story grammar", emotional vocabulary and affective prosody using stories in English. Modifiability during teaching, as well as pretest and posttest performance, will be compared for typically developing children and those thought to be at risk for DLD. The outcomes of this study will be of direct relevance to the provision of equitable services to EAL speakers