Designing a Normed Receptive Vocabulary Test for Bilingual Populations: A Model from Welsh

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rbeb20

Download by: [Florida International University] Date: 16 March 2016, At: 07:33

International Journal of Bilingual Education andBilingualism

ISSN: 1367-0050 (Print) 1747-7522 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbeb20

Designing a Normed Receptive Vocabulary Test forBilingual Populations: A Model from Welsh

Professor Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole , Enlli Mon Thomas & Emma Hughes

To cite this article: Professor Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole , Enlli Mon Thomas & EmmaHughes (2008) Designing a Normed Receptive Vocabulary Test for Bilingual Populations: AModel from Welsh, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11:6, 678-720

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050802149283

Published online: 19 Dec 2008.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 338

View related articles

Citing articles: 8 View citing articles

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rbeb20

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbeb20

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050802149283

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rbeb20&page=instructions

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rbeb20&page=instructions

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/13670050802149283

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/13670050802149283

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/13670050802149283#tabModule

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/13670050802149283#tabModule

Designing a Normed ReceptiveVocabulary Test for BilingualPopulations: A Model from Welsh

Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Enlli Mon Thomas and Emma HughesSchool of Psychology, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK

The purpose of this paper is to propose an applied model for the assessment ofbilingual children’s language abilities with standardised tests. We discuss thepurposes of such tests, especially in relation to vocabulary knowledge, and potentialapplications of test results for each of those purposes. The specific case to beexamined here is that of Welsh vocabulary, but the principles are relevant to anyother bilingual population and any other aspect of language. Our proposal is that allstandardised language tests for bilinguals should take into account children’sexposure to the language in question and should report both a general scorecomparing a given child to all children � bilingual or monolingual � and a score thatindicates the child’s placement relative to (bilingual) children who have similarlanguage exposure profiles.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802149283

Keywords: language testing, bilingual acquisition, language achievement

IntroductionThe importance of norms for bilingual language abilities

The basic assumption behind this study is that a normed language test isnever to be taken as a prescriptive measure in any sense, but, instead, actspurely as a descriptive measure. That is, the norms provided in a standardisedtest represent the best attempts at a description of the normal languageabilities expected of children at different ages and stages learning the languagein question. That description is based on what children who have been testedat similar ages and stages have been shown to know. When a test providesnorms, it simply means that information has been gathered concerning how alarge number of children in the given age range or with the given languagebackground have normally performed on that test.1

In the present case, we are concerned with children’s vocabulary abilities. Inany bilingual community, children are hearing varying amounts of the twolanguages they are learning. The extent to which children in a bilingual settinghear Language A and Language B (‘LA’ and ‘LB’) differs dramatically acrosschildren and across conditions. Some children will hear LA almost all dayevery day, while others hear LA only a portion of their day and from onlysome of the people they know. For example, children growing up in an LA-only-speaking home will hear LA much more than children growing up in atwo-language, LA- and LB-speaking home, who in turn will hear LA much

1367-0050/08/06 678-43 $20.00/0 – 2008 Taylor & FrancisThe International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Vol. 11, No. 6, 2008

678

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

http://www.multilingual-matters.com/multi/journals/journals_ijbeb.asp?TAG=&CID=

http://www.multilingual-matters.com

more than children growing up in LB-only-speaking homes. Children living ina fully bilingual community, regardless of their home language, are morelikely to hear both languages every day than those living in a community inwhich only one of the languages is normally used. Children’s experience withthe two languages can vary in complex ways (Frederickson & Cline, 1996).Such differences in frequency of exposure will affect how much vocabularysuch children will know, simply because children’s acquisition of wordsdepends on which words they are hearing and how frequently. Bilingualchildren may thus know words for some items in one language (e.g. Welshtisian ‘to sneeze’, Spanish fregar ‘to wash [dishes]’) but not in the other (Englishsneeze, wash dishes), and vice versa (e.g. English sausages but not Welsh selsig, orEnglish movie but not Spanish pelıcula). (This effect of frequency of exposure onvocabulary development is true, of course, even for monolingual children. See,for example, Hart & Risley, 1995.)

Furthermore, children growing up in bilingual settings tend to hear some oftheir two languages in overlapping contexts (e.g. they may hear both LA andLB in the grocery store) and some of the two languages in non-overlappingcontexts (e.g. they may hear mostly LA when cooking with their parent in thekitchen and hear mostly LB when attending a pantomime during theholidays). Some children may hear LA both in and outside of the schoolsetting, while others may hear LA primarily or solely at school. The pattern ofexposure to the language will ultimately affect which words children know ineach language. This ‘distributed’ or ‘complementary’ characteristic of bilin-guals’ vocabularies in their two languages is a natural outgrowth of the factthat language is learned in context (Gathercole, 2007b; Grosjean, 1997, 1998/2004; Oller, 2005).

Studies of children growing up in bilingual settings have documented thatsuch differential exposure to the bilingual’s two languages quite naturallyaffects the range of vocabulary items a child will know at any given age ineach of those languages; their scores on standardised vocabulary measures falltypically below those of their monolingual peers for the same language (Hoff& Elledge, 2005; Hoff & McKay, 2005; Ortiz et al., 1985, 1986; Pearson &Fernandez, 1994; Pearson et al., 1993, 1995; Umbel et al., 1992). If a bilingual’sabilities in both languages are taken into account, however, the range ofconcepts for which they have labels across the two languages is equivalent toor surpasses the range of concepts labelled by monolinguals in either of thoselanguages (Pearson & Fernandez, 1994; Pearson et al., 1993, 1995).

Furthermore, studies have also documented that bilingual children’slinguistic development is highly contingent specifically on the language(s)they are hearing in the home and at school (Gathercole, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c,2007a; Oller & Eilers 2002a, 2002b). In Wales, significant differences can befound in the abilities of children coming from homes in which only Welsh isspoken, in which both Welsh and English are spoken, and in which onlyEnglish is spoken; the language of the school also affects performance, but at asomewhat less significant level (e.g. Gathercole & Thomas, 2005; Gathercoleet al., 2001, 2005; Thomas & Gathercole, 2007). In Miami, similar effects havebeen found for home language and school language (see, e.g. Gathercole,2007b).

Normed Receptive Vocabulary Test for Bilingual Populations 679

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

A crucial point is that the amount of exposure a child has to a givenlanguage affects the timing � but not the nature � of a child’s development inthat language (Gathercole, 2007b; Gathercole & Hoff, 2007), as well as possibleultimate attainment (Thomas & Gathercole, 2007). This means that, whilechildren from all backgrounds appear to go through qualitatively similar stepsin development (Gathercole, 2007b; Hakansson et al., 2003; Kupisch, 2003;Meisel, 1989, 2001; Rieckborn, 2005, 2006), the quantity of input they hear on adaily basis affects the timing of their movement through those steps, in both oftheir languages.

A proper norming of any linguistic measure for children growing upbilingually, then, requires an appreciation of these facts (Cline, 1992; Ortiz &Yates, 2002). If a language measure treats all children with different types ofexposure in exactly the same way, it can provide a skewed picture ofappropriate expectations for a given child’s knowledge of the language, giventhe conditions under which he or she is learning the language. (Children maybe falling behind in a second language for other reasons as well, seeFrederickson & Cline, 1996; Ortiz et al., 1985, 1986) While this problem hasbeen highlighted and discussed in the literature, especially in relation toEnglish language learners (Artiles & Ortiz 2002a, 2002b; Cline, 1998; Ortiz,2002; Ortiz & Kushner, 1997; Ortiz & Yates, 2002), it has not been easy to find asolution in practice. More recently, however, a number of tests have begunproviding bilingual norms, alongside monolingual norms, for standardisedtests. Some good examples are Brownell (2000a, 2000b) for Spanish�Englishbilinguals; Munro et al. (2005) for Welsh bilinguals; Verhoeven and Vermeer(1993) for Dutch monolinguals and bilinguals; Munoz-Sandoval et al. (2005) forbilingual abilities in 18 languages; Mattes (1995) for vocabulary in English incombination with Spanish, French, Italian or Vietnamese; and Paradis andLibben (1987) for aphasic individuals (available in 65 languages and 170language pairs). The BPVS (Dunn et al., 1997) also now provides norms forbilingual children. These newer tests typically provide one set of norms forbilingual children (or for children from a certain L1 background learning agiven L2 � e.g. Verhoeven & Vermeer, 1993) without distinguishing sub-groups of bilinguals, and different from the norms for monolingual children.However, because standardised vocabulary measures are used for severalpurposes, it would be beneficial if they went beyond this: a norm-referencedtest could provide information on both (a) where the child falls relative to thewhole population (both bilingual and monolingual) of a similar age range and(b) where the child falls relative to precisely those bilingual children who havesimilar exposure to the language, not just comparison with any bilingual. Thisdual-pronged assessment would then provide information on where a givenchild stands from the two perspectives � where the child stands in relation toall children learning the given language, and where the child stands in relationto children with a similar exposure to the language.

In what follows, we will first explore explicitly the multiple uses to whichstandardised vocabulary measures are put, to differentiate their uses fordistinct practical aims, and discuss how those applications might differ in abilingual situation. This will then be followed by a description of the model wehave designed for use with Welsh-speaking bilingual children � a model that

680 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

incorporates a consideration of language exposure and that can be applied toother bilingual situations. We will close with a discussion of how such a modelresponds to the need for proper tools for assessing bilingual children.

Purposes of vocabulary measures

The purposes for which professionals use standardised tests of children’svocabulary levels are quite varied. Their uses can be grouped into threecategories: (a) some of these purposes are specific to the particular language inquestion, (b) some have to do with the child’s language abilities in general and(c) some go beyond the child’s abilities in language to gaining someassessment of the child’s cognitive abilities.

Language-specific purposes: Information on the child’s knowledgeof the language tested

If we focus first on the uses of a standardised vocabulary test that arespecific to the language in question, there are at least two reasons whyprofessionals make use of vocabulary tests.

(1) First, a vocabulary test is a good first measure for obtaining informationon a child’s overall abilities in the given language. It can provide a firstsnapshot into a child’s knowledge of that language, with implications forprobable comparable levels of achievement in other areas of thelanguage, such as morphological and syntactic development. Normedvocabulary tests for English (and other languages) are available and arewidely used for testing development through the teen years (see, e.g. theBritish Picture Vocabulary Scale, Dunn et al., 1982). Vocabulary has beenshown to correlate highly with morphological and grammatical devel-opment in normally developing children (Bates & Goodman, 1997, 1999;Bates et al., 1988; Bretherton et al., 1983; Fenson et al., 1994; Marchman &Bates, 1994; Snyder et al., 1981); this connection links language-specificvocabulary and (the same) language-specific grammar (Conboy & Thal,2006). Thus, vocabulary knowledge is a good indicator of overall abilityin a language, and can, therefore, be used for a wide range of purposesin research and in education.

(2) A vocabulary test can provide an indication, therefore, of whether aparticular child’s development in the given language is along the linesone might expect (under normal conditions similar to those in which thechild is developing) or somehow diverges from the normal pattern. Acritical mass of vocabulary knowledge � that is, a certain minimum levelof knowledge of words � has been indicated as a key factor formorphological and grammatical development in children with specificlanguage impairment (Conti-Ramsden & Jones, 1997; Jones & Conti-Ramsden, 1997). Without a critical mass of vocabulary items, suchchildren are unable to make the ‘leaps’ in general abstractions that arenecessary for competent use of morphological and grammatical patterns� i.e. word structure and sentence structure � in the language. This againsuggests that a child’s performance on a reliable, normed vocabulary testis a good indicator of overall ability in the given language and a good


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

first tool for initial screening of children’s abilities. It can give someinitial reliable information on whether a child may be having difficultyin the development of this language, or possibly language in general.(See ‘more general purposes’ below.)

Who should a given child be compared to for these language-specificpurposes? Given these two language-specific uses of a vocabulary mea-sure, it is possible that for children growing up in a bilingual setting, onemight on some occasions wish to compare a given child’s abilities with anyother children who are at a comparable age or school year level. Such acomparison may be appropriate, for example, when making decisions onappropriate reading materials for groups of children within a classroomsetting (Bond, 1996). (In usual circumstances, this use of such a normed testcould be supplemented with information gleaned from criterion-referencedtesting. See, e.g. Haertel, 1985.)

At other times, a professional may wish to compare a given child’s level ofknowledge with only those children who are growing up in similar languagecircumstances (e.g. if the child is growing up in a LA-only home, how doess/he compare with other children growing up in LA-only homes; if the child isgrowing up in a LB-only home and is acquiring LA through school andthrough LA-speaking peers, how does s/he compare with children learningLA under similar conditions; and so forth). Such a comparison would beoptimal when a professional wishes to obtain evidence on whether a givenchild’s abilities in the language are progressing along a normal developmentalcourse, given the circumstances of his/her language environment, or are inany way divergent from those normal expectations.

For these reasons, it would be beneficial if a test of a child’s vocabularyabilities could provide norms of both types � first, according to any childrenwithin the same age range, and, second, according to a sub-group of childrenwho have similar linguistic environments in the home.

Beyond these language-specific purposes of a vocabulary measure, voca-bulary tests are often used for some more general purposes. One of these is toobtain a measure of the child’s abilities with language in general; the other isto obtain a measure of the child’s non-linguistic conceptual knowledge.

Language-specific purposes: Information on the child’s knowledgeof language in general (not just the language tested)

With monolingual children, a child’s performance on any normed languagemeasure can be taken not only as giving information on what the child knowsabout the particular language tested, but also as giving information onwhether this child is having difficulty with language in general � i.e. whethers/he may have a language disability of some sort, having problems withlanguage per se. In a case where a child performs poorly on a vocabulary test, aprofessional can follow up with other language measures to identify exactlywhere the given child may or may not have some language disorder �examining particular areas of the grammar or exploring other possibleaccompanying difficulties outside of language (e.g. a general attention deficitor a general learning difficulty).


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

With bilingual children, this use of a normed vocabulary measure is notwarranted, if the child is tested in only one of his/her languages (Pearson et al.,1993, 1995), and especially if the test is normed on monolingual children. Inrare circumstances could a professional test a bilingual child in only one ofhis/her languages and be confident in drawing inferences about that child’soverall language capacity. At a minimum, if a child shows difficulty in onelanguage, that should ideally be followed up with measures in the child’sother language to ensure that one has simply not been sampling a languagethat the child has had little or less exposure to than his/her peers orvocabulary items the child has simply not been exposed to in the givenlanguage. And in the best of possible worlds, information on both of thechild’s languages would be desirable before one could draw inferences aboutoverall abilities. The best test for whether a bilingual child is having difficultieswith language per se is that s/he should have difficulties in both languages(see, e.g. Hakansson et al., 2003).2

However, tests are not always available in both of the child’s languages. Touse a single language measure as an indicator of language capacity per se, theprofessional needs a way of taking into account the child’s level of exposure toeach language (e.g. at home and in school). If differential exposure is built intothe norming of a test, this can at least be taken into consideration whendetermining whether the child falls within or outside the norms for his or hercohort. If the child falls outside the norm observed in children with similarlanguage exposure, it may then be taken as a first indication of potentialproblems. (Such a possibility could then be pursued through furtherexploration.)

Non-language purposes: Information on the child’s knowledge ofconcepts

Because a child’s vocabulary knowledge is closely tied with the child’sconceptual knowledge (e.g. evidence that a child knows the label for a type ofobject or action or state provides evidence that s/he also has (non-linguistic)knowledge of that category of objects or actions or states, and evidence that achild knows different labels for different types of objects or actions providesevidence that s/he understands differences across types of objects or actions,and so forth), vocabulary measures are often used to gain a ‘window’ into thatconceptual knowledge (or are often included within measures of ‘cognitive’knowledge, as in the McCarthy, 1972; Reynell, 1987). That is, vocabulary testsare often used as, interpreted as or included in intelligence tests. When dealingwith monolingual children, such a leap from measurement of vocabularyabilities to inferences about cognitive abilities is fairly warranted. Whendealing with bilingual children, on the other hand, such a leap should be takenwith extreme caution and is generally invalid if based on only one of thechild’s languages. Evidence of vocabulary abilities in only one of a bilingualchild’s two languages will under-represent that child’s cognitive abilities(Oller & Pearson, 2002). This is because, as noted above, bilingual children’svocabulary knowledge in their two languages is ‘distributed’ � they some-times know the label for some categories or concepts in one of their languages,and for some other categories and concepts in the other of their languages. For


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

this more general purpose of gaining information on a child’s conceptualabilities, then, it is clear that bilingual children’s abilities in both of theirlanguages is indispensable.

The design of a test for a language other than English

It appears to be a fairly common practice, when no tests exist for a givenlanguage, for researchers or practitioners (often in desperation to havesomething they can use) to translate existing tests from another language,usually English. However, a straight translation is not ideal (see, e.g. Gentner& Boroditsky, in press) and should be avoided if possible. This is for thefollowing reasons.

First, meaningful assessment measures a child’s abilities in the language inquestion. The measure should not be a test in which a child might be able todraw on knowledge of his/her other language to respond appropriately. Thisis particularly important in relation to bilinguals in a fully bilingualcommunity, as extensive bilingualism in the community tends to promoteborrowing between the two languages. In the case of Welsh, for example, thelong-standing coexistence of Welsh alongside English in the communitymeans that there are in present-day Welsh many English borrowings thatcan be considered to be of everyday, ‘standard’ usage (e.g. trafeilio /tra’veilic/‘to travel’); in Miami, one hears Spanish speakers using the word /taipear/ for‘to type (on a keyboard)’. If one were to translate an English-based test intoWelsh or Spanish, the resulting measure would likely contain English-basedborrowings, and a child could respond appropriately to them based solely onknowledge of English.

Equally important, if a test is produced by translating from anotherlanguage, the verbal instructions used to prompt children may be inappropri-ate for the language in question. For example, English tests often ask the childto ‘point to the X’. A direct translation of this into Welsh would be ‘pwyntia aty X’, with the definite article y ‘the’. The use of such an instruction would beproblematic for Welsh, because after the definite article, feminine nounsmutate � i.e. their initial consonants undergo phonological lenition (see, e.g.Thomas, 1996; Thorne, 1993). So if one is eliciting, for example the word for‘ball’ or ‘chair’, the Welsh forms would require the mutated forms of thesewords � y bel and y gadair, not the basic forms of the words, pel and cadair.(While it is possible that one might decide that the test should indeed elicitresponses to such mutated forms, this needs to be considered seriously beforeincluding such instructions in a test.) Similar problems are likely to affecttranslations in the cases of other languages.

Finally, a direct translation of vocabulary items from a test in one languageto another language invariably entails potential problems concerning the level,complexity or register of the ‘equivalent’ words in the two languages. Forexample, if one wished to develop a Welsh vocabulary test by translating theEnglish BPVS (Dunn et al., 1982), the best translation of scalp may be croen y pen(‘skin of the head’) or of ambulation may be cerddediad (from cerdded � ‘towalk’). Clearly scalp and ambulation are words that must be learned asindividual lexical items in English, while croen y pen and cerddediad are analytic


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

forms that build on simpler forms, croen ‘skin’, pen ‘head’ and cerdded ‘walk’.For the Welsh words, the child could rely on these simpler forms to interpretthe more complex construct. Conversely, there would also be some words inEnglish that would involve translations into Welsh that are of much lessfrequent usage. E.g. curve in English would be translated into cromlin, which isof very infrequent usage (only 1 in 1,000,000 words, Ellis et al., 2001); thiscompares with 34 per million (25 singular, 9 plural) occurrences of curve inEnglish (Leech et al., 2001). Such considerations would apply to any twolanguages in a pair.

For these reasons, it is critical when designing a test to be used withbilinguals to find words that appropriately measure children’s abilities withthe vocabulary of the language in question. We suggest that the followingcriteria should be considered, at the development stage, when selectingappropriate words to be incorporated into such a vocabulary test (e.g., for LA):

(1) All words should be ‘native’ LA words, not borrowings from LB.(2) No LA-LB cognates, even if they are not borrowings, should be used.(3) Dialect-specific words should be avoided whenever possible.(4) The words to be tested should cover a range of frequencies and

complexity, so that the test can discriminate usage across a wide agerange and a wide range of abilities.

(5) The words chosen need to be pictureable.

It should be noted that the imposition of these criteria, and the decision toexclude LB borrowings from a test, does not in any way discriminate against afull measure of a child’s vocabulary. All standardised tests for vocabularyabilities have as their goal a ‘spot checking’ of children’s knowledge of critical,discriminating words � words that act as strong indicators of overallvocabulary knowledge and discriminating across performance (Bond, 1996;Popham, 1975). No standardised test can provide a comprehensive picture ofall of the words a given child knows. Rather, a standardised test is meant toprovide a reliable indication of the range of lexical knowledge.

The following section describes the development of a receptive vocabularymeasure for Welsh that follows these principles and criteria. The data are laidout in considerable detail, to clarify fully the proposed outcomes and modelfor the reporting of vocabulary abilities for bilingual children.

Receptive Vocabulary Test for WelshMethod

Our ultimate aim is to eventually provide a test or tests to cover the span ofages from age 3 to 15. We have so far worked on the present version of the test,which covers ages 7�11 (Gathercole & Thomas, in press). Our long-term goal isto develop a model that will incorporate a bilingual’s performance on both ofhis/her languages.

Choice of lexical items and development of stimuliIn order to test a set of lexical items at a very wide range of frequency levels,

we consulted the Cronfa Electroneg o’r Gymraeg (CEG) (Ellis et al., 2001), a


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

frequency analysis of 1,079,032 Welsh words, based on 500 samples of writtentext (each approximately 2000 words long). We also consulted Jones’ (2001)CHILDES data of Welsh.

From these we chose 240 items that met our criteria listed above. We chose30 words from each of 8 frequency counts:

600�1000� occurrences per million words200�599 occurrences per million words150�199 occurrences per million words100�149 occurrences per million words75�99 occurrences per million words50�74 occurrences per million words25�49 occurrences per million wordsB25 occurrences per million words

The expectation was that the youngest children (nursery school-aged) wouldknow only some of the very frequent words, school-aged children wouldknow more of the intermediate-level words and the least frequentwords would be known by only the oldest participants (early teen years).

For each of these words, we put together a set of four pictorial stimuli,arranged in a 2�2 frame on a page. One picture was a ‘match’ for the word,and the other three were distracters. Some of the distracters were chosen todiscriminate the target word from a similarly sounding English word or from asimilarly sounding Welsh word (e.g. a plural instead of a singular form; dwr‘water’ versus dwrn ‘fist’).

Many concepts were difficult to show pictorially, therefore we consulted 10native Welsh-speaking adults from North Wales regarding the appropriatenessof the pictures chosen as representations for the target words. With theirfeedback, a few modifications were implemented and incorporated into thechosen stimuli.

Four distinct sequences of the 240 words were produced. In these fourversions, the words of different levels of frequency were systematicallyinterspersed throughout. We compiled a computerised PowerPoint format ofthe test, which allowed for administration of the test to a group of children,e.g. in a classroom. The computerised stimuli were shown at the front of theclass, and children were provided with answer ‘books’ that contained copiesof the same stimuli. Children were instructed to look first at the stimulusshown on the screen and then to circle the picture on their answer booklet thatwas the best choice for the word they had heard. All vocabulary stimuli wereprovided orally. At no time did children see any version of the vocabularyitems in written form.

ParticipantsThe participants tested for the standardisation for school-aged children

involved 611 children between the ages of 7 and 11. There were 317 femalesand 294 males. An additional 7 children (5 girls, 2 boys) began the test butdid not complete it. Because the aim was to develop a test that served all areasand dialects of Wales, the children came from North (N�321), Mid (N�211)and South Wales (N�79). Participants were distributed by age as shown in


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 1, and by school year as shown in Table 2. The child’s assignment to aHome Language group (OWH, only Welsh at home; WEH, Welsh and Englishat home; OEH, only English at home) was carried out according to a strict setof criteria.3 These were as follows:

Clear cases.a. Both parents, or a single parent in a single-parent family, speak only

Welsh to the child: OWH.b. Both parents, or a single parent in a single-parent family, speak only

English to the child: OEH.c. Both parents speak both Welsh and English to the child: WEH.d. In a two-parent family, one parent speaks only Welsh to the child, the

other parent speaks only English to the child: WEH.Less clear cases.

a. One parent speaks only Welsh to the child, the other parent speaksmostly Welsh to the child: OWH.

b. Both parents speak mostly Welsh to the child: OWH.c. One parent speaks only Welsh to the child, the other parent speaks

both Welsh and English to the child: WEH.d. One parent speaks mostly Welsh to the child, the other parent speaks

both Welsh and English to the child: WEH.

Table 1 Participants for the norming sample, by age and home language

Age OWH WEH OEH TOT

7 43 36 29 108

8 45 60 55 160

9 36 43 44 123

10 54 40 46 140

11 36 17 27 80

TOT 214 196 201 611

Table 2 Participants for the norming sample, by school year and home language

Year OWH WEH OEH TOT

3 71 56 43 170

4 35 59 51 145

5 48 49 55 152

6 52 29 47 128

7 8 3 5 16

TOT 214 196 201 611


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

e. One parent speaks only English to the child, the other parent speaksmostly Welsh to the child: WEH.

f. One parent speaks only English to the child, the other parent speaksWelsh and English to the child: WEH.

g. One parent speaks mostly English to the child, the other parentspeaks mostly Welsh to the child: WEH.

h. One parent speaks mostly English to the child, the other parentspeaks Welsh and English to the child: WEH.

i. Both parents speak mostly English to the child: OEH.

These possibilities are laid out in Table 3.

ProcedureAll children were tested in their classrooms in groups. The researchers

handed out booklets to each child. On the first page of the booklet, there was aquestionnaire that the child was asked to fill in with information on age, birthdate and language background. It included questions asking the child whichlanguage(s) their mother, father and siblings spoke to them. The researcherscirculated in the classroom to check that all children understood what wasbeing asked in this informational sheet and to help children fill it out.4 If achild had any question about his/her particular case (e.g. if the child livedwith one parent and did not see the other), the researcher helped the child tofill in the form and to write in the relevant information.

Table 3 Criteria for assignment of participants to home language group

Language spoken byParent 1 to child

Language spoken byParent 2 to child

OWH WEH OEH

Only W Only W x

Only W Mostly W x

Mostly W Mostly W x

W and E W and E x

Only W Only E x

Only W W and E x

Mostly W W and E x

Only E Mostly W x

Only E W and E x

Mostly E Mostly W x

Mostly E W and E x

Only E Only E x

Mostly E Mostly E x


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

After these sheets were filled in, the lead researcher instructed children toturn the page and simultaneously showed the initial (practice) picture stimuliat the front of the classroom via a projector. The researcher provided thefollowing instructions:

’Dw i am ddangos lluniau lliw i chi ar y sgrın. Bydd y lluniau yma’nmatsio’r lluniau du a gwyn sydd yn eich llyfrynnau. ‘Dw i am ddweudgair i gydfyd a phob sleid lliw, ac mae’n rhaid i chi ddewis pa lun, allano’r pedwar dewis, sydd yn mynd ORAU efo’r gair ‘da chi’n ei glywed.

I am going to show you coloured pictures on the screen. These pictureswill match the black and white pictures that are in your books. I will saya word with each colour slide, and you need to choose which picture,out of the four choices, goes BEST with the word you hear.

The researcher then gave two practice items (afal ‘apple’, aderyn ‘bird’). Foreach of these, the researcher instructed the child to ‘wneud cylch o amgylch yllun sy’n mynd ORAU efo’r gair afal, afal’ (‘put a circle around the picture thatgoes BEST with the word afal (‘apple’)’), repeating the word.

For these practice items, the researcher checked that each child understoodthat s/he was supposed to circle just one choice in their booklet. Theresearcher gave corrective feedback for these practice items. After the practiceitems, the researcher continued to the target items. Each target word wasrepeated on each trial. No feedback was given for the target items.

Analyses

Initial analyses were conducted on all children’s responses to all 240 words.Preliminary analyses examined whether there were differences in responsepatterns across the four different versions of the test, which varied in order ofpresentation. When the analyses controlled for Age and Home Language,there were in most cases no significant differences in performance acrossversions. In two cases, however, those of the OEH 7-year-olds and the OWH10-year-olds, the data revealed that Version 2 was harder than Version 1(Tukey’s HSD, pB0.04). In the case of the OEH 7-year-olds, children who tookVersion 1 had an average of 175.7 words correct, and those who took Version 2had 131.7 correct (the OEH 7-year-olds had an average of 162.9 correct on theother two versions). However, the numbers of participants receiving Versions1 and 2 in the OEH 7-year-old groups were small (N�6, N�3). In the case ofthe OWH 10-year-olds, those who took Version 1 averaged 206.9 words correctand those who took Version 2 had 189.0 correct (the other two versions had anaverage of 189.7 correct). Close examination of Version 1 versus 2 suggests thatVersion 1 may have started with easier words, Version 2 harder words. Asthese two limited cases are the exception to the rule � performance did notgenerally vary across the four versions, and as the resulting normed test hasonly a single order, with all children receiving the easier words beforethe harder words, all subsequent analyses were collapsed across versions ofthe test, with no further consideration of version.

Further analyses of variance were conducted on all 240 words to determinewhether children from distinct home language groups, at different ages and at


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

different school years performed differently. Each child’s age was entered as avariable, along with whether s/he was in the lower or higher school year forthe given age (E.g. some 8-year-olds were in Year 3 and some in Year 4 at thetime of testing. The former were entered as in the ‘lower’ year for that age, thelatter in the ‘higher’ year for that age. Similarly, some 9-year-olds were in Year4 and some in Year 5. The former were classified as in the ‘lower’ year for thatage and the latter in the ‘higher’ year. And so on.) When Home Language, Ageand Higher/Lower Year were entered as variables, analyses revealedsignificant main effects of Age (F(4, 584)�28.9, pB0.001) and of HomeLanguage (F(2, 584)�33.4, pB0.001), and a near-significant effect of Higher/Lower Year (F(1, 584)�3.1, pB0.08). Children’s performance differed acrossall ages (Tukey’s HSD pB0.001), except for 7-versus 8-year-olds, and exceptfor ages 9 versus 10, which were nearly significant (Tukey’s HSD pB0.065).Children from OWH homes performed significantly differently from the otherHome Language groups, Tukey’s HSD pB0.001 (WEH versus OEH: p�0.17).There were no two- or three-way interactions, indicating parallel progressionfor all three Home Language groups with age. Performance by Age�HomeLanguage on all 240 words is shown in Figure 1.

Subsequent item analyses indicated that a number of the individual wordswere not discriminating � i.e. children in different age groups, year groups orhome language groups did not perform differently. This was because (a) somewords were generally known by these ages, as we had expected for the veryfrequent words, (b) some words were generally not known by children at theseages, as we had predicted for the least frequent words and (c) some words

180.

5

184.

1

194.

4

195.

5 215.

5

161.

0

172.

3

175.

4

187.

0

196.

8

158.

9

158.

8 177.

8

181.

4 199.

1

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

220

240

7 8 9 10 11

Age X Home Language Group

OWH WEH OEH

Figure 1 Mean Number of Correct Responses by Age�Home Language on all 240words


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

showed no consistent pattern in children’s responses (either the knowledge ofthe word was scattered, or the picture options offered led children’s responsepatterns to appear scattered).

When these non-discriminating words were eliminated from analyses, therewere 111 words remaining. A second set of analyses examined performance onthese 111 words. When Home Language, Age and Higher/Lower Year wereentered as variables, there were again main effects of Age (F(4, 584)�29.3,pB0.001), of Home Language (F(2, 584)�58.5, pB0.001) and of Higher/Lower Year (F(1, 584)�4.1, pB0.044). As before, children performedsignificantly differently at all ages except 7 and 8, all Tukey’s pB0.033.Children from all Home Language groups performed significantly differentlyfrom each other, all p’sB0.023. Performance on these discriminating words isshown in Figure 2.

These results indicate, first, that children at distinct ages perform differentlyon both the whole set of 240 words and the 111 significant words, and, second,that children from distinct home language groups perform differently, withperformance related to the amount of exposure that the children have to Welshin the home. In addition, children from the same age group perform differentlyaccording to the school year they are currently enrolled in. Further examina-tion of the statistical results confirmed that the data were distributed normally,indicating that progression across the groups by age and year occurs inparallel. (Further analysis also confirmed a very high correlation betweenindividuals’ performance on the full set of 240 words and the significant set of111 words, Pearson’s r�0.971, pB0.001 (two-tailed). If the total correct on the

75.0

73.3

81.6

77.8

89.2

83.3

85.4

94.1 97

.682

.0

84.8

75.1

68.070

.6

66.2

61.4

69.6 77

.5

88.4

78.5

72.0

71.3

68.3

70.2

58.2

59.3

59.4

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

7-Y

r3

8-Y

r3

8-Y

r4

9-Y

r4

9-Y

r5

10-Y

r5

10-Y

r6

11-Y

r6

11-Y

r7

Age - Year Group by Home Language

OWH WEH OEH

Figure 2 Mean Number Correct Responses by Age - Year and Home Language on 111discriminating words


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

significant words is compared with the totals on the remaining 129 words, thecorrelations are still very high: Pearson’s r�0.832, pB0.001 (two-tailed).)These results are consistent with findings in prior research on other languagesindicating that the amount of input a child receives in a language is relatedto their vocabulary level in that language (Gathercole, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c;Oller & Eilers, 2002b).

They indicate, further, that a valid norming of the test should distinguishnot only age groups of children, but also home language groups. The proposedmodel, therefore, provides two types of norms: the first, a general norming,placing each child in relation to his/her entire age cohort, and a home-language norming, placing each child in relation to his/her cohort from asimilar language background at the same age/school-year. The suggestedusage of these norms is presented below.

Establishing a Normed Version of the TestStandardisation

The normed version of the test presents the 111 words that are discrimi-native of performance across children at these ages. As noted, we provide twosets of norms, one a general overall norm for all children at each Age level, theother taking into consideration the child’s Home Language in combinationwith Age-Year level. Both norms should be consulted when considering agiven bilingual individual child’s level of vocabulary.

Table 4 provides the raw scores and their conversions to standardisedscores, using 100 for the mean and 15 for one standard deviation (as in, e.g. theWechsler Intelligence Scales (e.g. WISC-IV 2003) and the BPVS (Dunn et al.,1997)). Note that Table 4 provides standardisations in two ways: first, for theAge group in general (the scores shown in green), and then for each Age-Year�Home Language group (OWH: in yellow; WEH: in blue; OEH: in pink).

As above, the determination of a child’s Home Language categorisationshould be based on the information he or she provides on the cover sheet/initial informational sheet of the test. The criteria that should be used forassigning a child to the OWH, WEH or OEH group are those that were usedfor the norming sample, outlined above and shown in Table 3 above.5 To arriveat the best possible judgement of the child’s Welsh vocabulary abilities, boththe Age-Year�Home Language norms and the overall norms for the givenAge group should be consulted.

The interpretation of the normed, standardised scores for this test followsthose of other tests, and is as follows:

a. A standardised score of 100 means that a child is performing exactly atthe mean performance of children in a comparable group.

b. A standardised score between 85 and 115 falls within a normal range(one standard deviation above or below the mean) of performance forthe child’s comparable group. Any score falling within this rangeindicates normally developing abilities in Welsh vocabulary.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 4 Distribution of standard scores by Age and by Age-YearCHome Language

Raw score Standard scores

Age 7 Age 8 Age 9

Age 7-Yr 3 Age 8-Yr 3 Age 8-Yr 4 Age 9-Yr 4 Age 9-Yr 5

All OWH WEH OEH All OWH WEH OEH OWH WEH OEH All OWH WEH OEH OWH WEH OEH

43 85

44 86

45 87

46 88

47 90 85

48 85 91 86

49 82 92 87 85

50 87 93 88 86

51 88 94 85 90 87

52 85 90 95 86 91 88 85

53 86 91 97 85 87 92 90 86

54 87 92 98 86 88 93 85 91 87

55 88 93 99 87 90 94 86 92 88 85

56 89 94 100 88 91 95 87 93 90 86

57 90 95 101 89 92 97 88 94 85 91 87

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s693

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 4 (Continued)


Age 7 Age 8 Age 9



58 91 97 102 90 93 98 90 95 86 92 88

59 92 85 98 103 91 94 99 91 97 85 87 93 90

60 94 86 99 105 92 95 100 92 98 86 88 94 85 91

61 95 87 100 107 94 97 101 93 99 87 90 95 86 92

62 96 88 101 108 95 85 98 102 94 100 88 91 97 87 93

63 97 90 102 109 96 86 99 103 95 101 89 92 98 88 94

64 98 91 103 110 97 87 100 105 97 102 90 93 99 90 95

65 99 92 105 111 98 88 101 107 85 98 103 91 94 100 91 97

66 100 93 107 112 99 90 102 108 86 99 105 92 95 101 92 98

67 101 94 108 113 100 91 103 109 87 100 107 94 97 102 93 99

68 102 95 109 114 101 92 105 110 88 101 108 95 85 98 103 94 100

69 103 97 110 115 102 93 107 111 90 102 109 96 86 99 105 95 101

70 104 98 111 103 94 108 112 91 103 110 97 87 100 107 97 102

71 105 99 112 104 95 109 113 92 105 111 98 88 101 108 85 98 103

72 106 100 113 105 97 110 114 93 107 112 99 90 102 109 86 99 105

694

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 4 (Continued)


Age 7 Age 8 Age 9



73 107 101 114 106 98 111 115 94 108 113 100 91 103 110 87 100 107

74 109 102 115 107 99 112 95 109 114 101 92 105 111 88 101 108

75 110 103 109 100 113 97 110 115 102 93 107 112 90 102 109

76 111 105 110 101 114 98 111 103 94 108 113 91 103 110

77 112 107 111 102 115 99 112 104 95 109 114 92 105 111

78 113 108 112 103 100 113 105 97 110 115 93 107 112

79 114 109 113 105 101 114 106 98 111 94 108 113

80 115 110 114 107 102 115 107 99 112 95 109 114

81 111 115 108 103 109 100 113 97 110 115

82 112 109 105 110 101 114 98 111

83 113 110 107 111 102 115 99 112

84 114 111 108 112 103 100 113

85 115 112 109 113 105 101 114

86 113 110 114 107 102 115

87 114 111 115 108 103

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s695

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 4 (Continued)


Age 7 Age 8 Age 9



88 115 112 109 105

89 113 110 107

90 114 111 108

91 115 112 109

92 113 110

93 114 111

94 115 112

95 113

96 114

97 115

98

99

100

101

102

696

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 4 (Continued)


Age 7 Age 8 Age 9



103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

OWH, only Welsh at home; WEH, Welsh and English at home; OEH, only English at home (see text for explanation)

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s697

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016


Age 10 Age 11

Age 10-Yr 5 Age 10-Yr 6 Age 11-Yr 6 Age 11-Yr 7

All OWH WEH OEH OWH WEH OEH All OWH WEH OEH OWH WEH OEH

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56 85

57 86

58 87

698

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

(Continued)


Age 10 Age 11



59 88 85

60 90 86

61 85 91 87

62 86 92 88

63 87 93 90

64 85 88 94 85 91

65 86 90 95 86 92

66 87 91 97 87 93 85

67 88 92 98 88 94 86

68 89 93 99 90 95 87

69 90 94 100 91 97 88 85

70 91 95 101 92 98 90 86

71 92 97 102 93 99 85 91 87

72 94 85 98 103 94 100 86 92 88

73 95 86 99 105 95 101 87 93 85 90

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s699

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

(Continued)


Age 10 Age 11



74 96 87 100 107 85 97 102 85 88 94 86 91

75 97 88 101 108 86 98 103 86 90 95 87 92

76 98 90 102 109 87 99 105 87 91 97 88 93

77 99 91 103 110 88 100 107 88 92 98 90 94

78 100 92 105 111 90 101 108 89 93 99 91 95

79 101 93 107 112 91 102 109 90 94 100 92 97

80 102 94 108 113 92 103 110 91 95 101 93 98

81 103 95 109 114 93 105 111 92 97 102 94 99

82 104 97 110 115 94 107 112 94 85 98 103 95 100

83 105 98 111 95 108 113 95 86 99 105 97 101

84 106 99 112 97 109 114 96 87 100 107 85 98 102

85 107 100 113 98 110 115 97 88 101 108 86 99 103

86 109 101 114 99 111 98 90 102 109 87 100 105

87 110 102 115 100 112 99 91 103 110 88 101 107

88 111 103 101 113 100 92 105 111 90 102 108

700

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

(Continued)


Age 10 Age 11



89 112 105 102 114 101 93 107 112 91 103 109

90 113 107 103 115 102 94 108 113 92 105 110

91 114 108 105 103 95 109 114 93 107 111

92 115 109 107 104 97 110 115 94 108 112

93 110 108 105 98 111 95 109 113

94 111 109 106 99 112 97 110 114

95 112 110 107 100 113 98 111 115

96 113 111 109 101 114 99 112

97 114 112 110 102 115 100 113

98 115 113 111 103 101 114

99 114 112 105 102 115

100 115 113 107 103

101 114 108 105

102 115 109 107

103 110 108

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s701

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

(Continued)


Age 10 Age 11



104 111 109

105 112 110

106 113 111

107 114 112

108 115 113

109 114

110 115

111

OWH, only Welsh at home; WEH, Welsh and English at home; OEH, only English at home (see text for explanation)

702

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

c. A standardised score falling above 115 indicates above-normal perfor-mance by a child relative to his/her age (and, if relevant, homelanguage�age/year) peers.

d. A standardised score falling below 85 indicates below-normal perfor-mance by a child relative to his/her age (and, if relevant, homelanguage�age/year) peers. A score below 85 suggests possible pro-blems with Welsh or with language in general (see introduction) andshould be followed up with further exploration of the child’s languageabilities (see below).

Scoring and interpretation of scores

The exact formats of the Welsh test and the explicit instructions on theadministration of the tests are included with the measure (Gathercole &Thomas, in press) and will not be discussed further here. However, the scoringand interpretation of scores is central to our proposed model for treatingbilingual assessment.

ScoringTable 5 provides an example of a blank form that can be used for recording

each child’s performance on a vocabulary measure normed with bilinguals.All of the following are relevant to the interpretation of the score, so they areincluded in the explicit score report: the child’s age group, year in school,Home Language group, the raw score and both standardised scores:

. The Age-standard score. This score places the child’s performancerelative to his age-matched peers regardless of home language back-ground.

. The Age-Year�Home Language standard score, recorded with a prefixindicating the Home Language (in our case, ‘OWH’, ‘WEH’ or ‘OEH’).This score places the child’s performance relative to his/her age and year-matched peers from a comparable home language background.

The form explicitly notes, to provide a constant reminder to the tester andanyone trying to interpret the results, that the ‘AGE Standard Score’ is ‘Forcomparison with ALL children at this age’, and the ‘AGE-YEAR�HOMELANGUAGE Standard Score’ is ‘For comparison ONLY with children at thisage and year from same language background’.

This information together constitutes the child’s ‘score’ on the test. Once thescore has been derived, it then requires interpretation. The assessor makes ajudgement on the best interpretation of the child’s abilities, based on thechild’s Age, Home Language, and the standardised scores and can make anote of that interpretation directly on the form.

Interpreting scoresTable 6 provides some hypothetical examples of children’s score reports

on the Prawf Geirfa Cymraeg, showing how the scores should be entered.Table 7A compares the hypothetical children from Table 6 who have similarraw scores but come from different Home Language backgrounds. Table 7B


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 5 Form for entering raw and standardised scores

Background details Standardised scores Interpretation

Name Age Year Homelanguage

Rawscore

Age standardscore

Age -Year�HomeLanguage standard

score

Withinnormalrange

Possiblelanguagedifficulty

Probablelanguagedifficulty

Highlanguageability

For comparisonwith ALL childrenat this age

For comparison ONLY withchildren at this age and yearfrom same languagebackground

Comparison group

704

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 6 Sample hypothetical raw and standardised scores of children from three home language backgrounds

Name Background details Rawscore

Standardised scores Interpretation

Age Year Homelanguage

Age standardscore

Age - year�HomeLanguage standard

score

Withinnormalrange



Highlanguageability

Erin Jones 9 4 WEH 69 96 WEH-99 �

For comparisonwith ALLchildren atthis age

For comparison ONLYwith children at thisage and year from samelanguage background

Comparison group

DafyddJones

11 6 WEH 69 80 WEH-84 �? �?


For comparison ONLYwith children at thisage and year from samelanguage background

Comparison group

TomosJones

7 3 WEH 57 90 WEH-95 �


For comparison ONLYwith children at thisage and year fromsame languagebackground

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s705

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 6 (Continued)




Age standardscore


score

Withinnormalrange



Highlanguageability

Comparison group

EinirJones

7 3 WEH 83 118 WEH-124 �


For comparison ONLY withchildren at thisage and year from samelanguage background

Comparison group

CatrinJones

8 3 WEH 83 117 WEH-121 �?



Comparison group

LlinosJones

9 4 OWH 69 96 OWH-86 �

706

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 6 (Continued)




Age standardscore


score

Withinnormalrange



Highlanguageability



Comparison group

RhysJones

11 6 OWH 69 80 OWH-71 �



Comparison group

MiriamJones

7 3 OWH 57 90 OWH-83 �? �?



Comparison group

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s707

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 6 (Continued)




Age standardscore


score

Withinnormalrange



Highlanguageability

Sion Jones 7 3 OWH 83 118 OWH-113 �? �?



Comparison group

HuwJones

8 3 OWH 83 117 OWH-110 �



Comparison group

Lois Jones 9 4 OEH 69 96 OEH-105 �



708

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 6 (Continued)




Age standardscore


score

Withinnormalrange



Highlanguageability

Comparison group

Ian Jones 11 6 OEH 69 80 OEH-88 �? �?



Comparison group

Carl Jones 7 3 OEH 57 90 OEH-101 �



Comparison group

LucyJones

7 3 OEH 83 118 OEH-129 �

No

rme

dR

ec

ep

tive

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Test

for

Bilin

gu

alP

op

ula

tion

s709

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Table 6 (Continued)




Age standardscore


score

Withinnormalrange



Highlanguageability



Comparison group

CarysJones

8 3 OEH 83 117 OEH-125 �?



Comparison group

710

The

Inte

rna

tion

alJo

urn

alo

fB

iling

ua

lEd

uc

atio

na

nd

Bilin

gu

alism

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

compares the performance of hypothetical children from Table 6 who havesimilar standardised scores for their Age-Year�Home Language Groups.

Similar raw scores. First, in Table 7A, there are hypothetical cases inwhich children from distinct Home Language backgrounds obtain the sameraw score on the test.

First, two children from WEH backgrounds with raw scores of 69 areshown. One, ‘Erin’, is aged 9, the other, ‘Dafydd’, aged 11. For the child aged 9,this raw score corresponds to an Age-matched standard score of 96, and anAge-Year�Home Language standard score of WEH-99. These indicate thatthis raw score is within the normal range of performance for a child her ageand year and home language background.

Table 7A Comparison of children with same raw score across HL groups


Standardised scores


Agestandardscore

Age-Year�HomeLanguagestandard score

Erin Jones 9 4 WEH 69 96 WEH-99

Llinos Jones 9 4 OWH 69 96 OWH-86

Lois Jones 9 4 OEH 69 96 OEH-105

Dafydd Jones 11 6 WEH 69 80 WEH-84

Rhys Jones 11 6 OWH 69 80 OWH-71

Ian Jones 11 6 OEH 69 80 OEH-88

Tomos Jones 7 3 WEH 57 90 WEH-95

Miriam Jones 7 3 OWH 57 90 OWH-83

Carl Jones 7 3 OEH 57 90 OEH-101

Einir Jones 7 3 WEH 83 118 WEH-124

Sion Jones 7 3 OWH 83 118 OWH-113

Lucy Jones 7 3 OEH 83 118 OEH-129

Catrin Jones 8 3 WEH 83 117 WEH-121

Huw Jones 8 3 OWH 83 117 OWH-110

Carys Jones 8 3 OEH 83 117 OEH-125


For comparisonONLY withchildren at thisage and year fromsame languagebackground

Comparison group


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

For the child aged 11, in contrast, this same raw score corresponds to anAge-matched standard score of 80, and an Age-Year�Home Languagestandard score of WEH-84. These indicate that for an 11-year-old in general,

Table 7B Comparison of children at same Age-Year�HL standard score across HLgroups

Name Background details RawScore

Standardised scores


Age standardscore

Age-Year�HomeLanguage standard

score

ErinWilliams

10 6 WEH 77 99 WEH-100

LlinosWilliams

10 6 OWH 87 110 OWH-100

LoisWilliams

10 6 OEH 72 94 OEH-100

DafyddWilliams

11 6 WEH 84 96 WEH-100

RhysWilliams

11 6 OWH 95 107 OWH-100

IanWilliams

11 6 OEH 79 90 OEH-100

TomosWilliams

7 3 WEH 61 95 WEH-100

MiriamWilliams

7 3 OWH 72 106 OWH-100

CarlWilliams

7 3 OEH 56 89 OEH-100

EinirWilliams

8 4 WEH 67 100 WEH-100

SionWilliams

8 4 OWH 78 112 OWH-100

LucyWilliams

8 4 OEH 62 95 OEH-100

For comparisonwith ALLchildren at thisage

For comparisonONLY withchildren at this ageand year fromsame languagebackground

Comparison group


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

this raw score is well below normal performance (i.e. below the normal 85�115standard score range), and for an 11-year-old in Year 6 coming from a WEHhome, this score is marginally below normal performance. In this case, thechild’s Welsh language abilities or language abilities in general may be subjectto further testing or exploration. They are low for his age and year and homelanguage; hence, the interpretation is of a ‘Probable’ or ‘Possible’ LanguageDifficulty in this case.

The next two cases show two hypothetical 7-year-olds from WEH homes. Inone case, ‘Tomos’, the child had a raw score of 57. In this case, the child isassigned an Age-standard score of 90, and an Age-Year�Home Languagescore of WEH-95. These are within the normal range of performance. In thenext case, ‘Einir Jones’, the child receives a raw score of 83, which correspondsto an Age-standard scores of 118 and an Age-Year�Home Language score ofWEH-124. The first, the general Age-standard score, indicates performancejust above the normal range for that Age group, but the Age-Year�HomeLanguage score shows performance well above the normal range for childrenof that Age-Year group coming from WEH homes. The judgement in this caseis that of ‘High Language Ability’.

The final case, ‘Catrin Jones’, shows a case similar to the last one, with thesame raw score, except that the child is aged 8, in Year 3. This child’s standardscores still appear to exceed (but only slightly) the normal range for her Agegroup and for her Age-Year�Home Language group.

Compare these hypothetical cases with OWH-background and OEH-back-ground children with similar raw scores. While the general AGE standardisedscores for such children will all be the same, the Age-Year�Home Languagestandard scores of OWH children will be lower than for their WEH and OEHpeers (because at the same ages one expects an OWH child to have had muchgreater exposure to Welsh words and therefore know more words than WEHand OEH children), and those of OEH children will be higher (because oneexpects OEH children to have lower levels of experience with Welsh words,and hence, not to know as many words as their age-matched peers in general).Thus, for example, a comparison of Year 3 7-year-olds ‘Tomos’ ‘Miriam’, and‘Carl’, with the same raw score of 57, in Table 7A shows that they have thesame general Age-standard score of 90, well within the norm for theirage group. However, the Age-Year�Home Language scores show thatwhile the WEH and OEH child are within the normal range for their homelanguage groups, the OWH child falls below the expected range for his homelanguage group. In such a case, the researcher or professional would want tofirst verify the home language classification for the child, and then, if verified,interpret the scores as indicating a ‘Possible’ Language Difficulty and monitorthis child’s performance and perhaps follow up with further testing orinvestigation of her abilities.

Same Age-Year�Home Language Standard Score. Table 7B demonstrateshypothetical cases in which children of a given Age group receive the sameStandard Score (100) for their Age-Year�Home Language group. In contrastto the cases in which the same raw score is obtained, in this case, comparableAge-Year�Home Language standard scores for children across homelanguage groups will mean that the OWH child will obtain a higher general


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Age-standard score than his/her WEH and OEH peers, and the OEH childwill receive a lower general Age-standard score than his/her OWH and WEHpeers. This is true for all sample cases in Table 7B where the same-agedchildren in the same year come from distinct home language backgrounds.

In every case, as noted above, all scores should be consulted whenevaluating a given child’s performance. If both standard scores show eitherbelow- or above-normal performance (e.g. in the hypothetical cases of ‘DafyddWilliams’, ‘Rhys Williams’, ‘Einir Williams’ and ‘Lucy Williams’), theevaluator can make decisions confidently on the basis of that performance.However, when the Age-Year�Home Language standard score suggests adifferent assessment of the child’s abilities (below, at, or above the norm) thanthe general Age-standard score, then further investigation is warranted. Insuch cases, the following steps would be recommended:

(1) Verification of the Home Language grouping. In all cases, the HomeLanguage classification of the child should be verified. If there is anydoubt about the Home Language classification, further informationshould be obtained if possible, or the child should be assigned the most‘conservative’ classification (i.e. the one that would assume less Welshinput rather than more Welsh input), or, in rare cases, the HomeLanguage classification should be left unassigned (in which case, thechild would be assigned only the general Age-standard score).

(2) Once the Home Language grouping is verified, the Age-Year�HomeLanguage standard score should be taken as indicative of a moredetailed assessment of the child’s vocabulary abilities. If that score fallsbelow the norm for the child’s group, then further testing or investiga-tion is warranted; if it falls above the norm, this should be taken asverification of the child’s special abilities in the language and/or inlanguage in general.

(3) The further investigation of the child’s abilities wherever this iswarranted should include the following:

a. An assessment of the child’s abilities in their other language, LB (inthis case, mostly English). The pairing of the LA (Welsh) score withthe child’s LB score is essential for a complete picture of the child’svocabulary and language abilities in general. (See discussion in theIntroduction.)

b. An assessment of the child’s LA (Welsh) abilities in other realms �phonological abilities, syntactic abilities, and the like, if at allpossible.

DiscussionThis paper attempts to provide a valid applied model for assessing

bilingual children’s language abilities. As many have pointed out, bilingualsare the norm in the world; monolinguals the exception. But our assessmentmeasures have yet to rise to a standard that recognises the legitimatedevelopmental trajectories of bilingual children in both of their languages.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Bilinguals’ language abilities develop along the same routes as monolinguals’abilities, but at a pace that is set by the level of exposure that they have to eachof their languages.

Standardised assessment measures for language are simply tools fordetermining whether a given child is developing as one might expect, givenhis/her circumstances. They are nothing more and nothing less. A given childcan be viewed as a member of a large age-matched group, or, alternatively, as amember of a smaller group that share similar experiences and exposure tolanguage. Because standardised language measures � and vocabularymeasures in particular � are interpreted as indicating much more thanvocabulary development (as outlined in this paper), it is imperative that testdevelopers and test users take the steps necessary to ensure that suchmeasures accurately reflect bilingual children’s abilities, as practitioners andresearchers have argued over the years.

The proposed model is an attempt at accomplishing that goal. It proposesthat adequate language measures for bilingual children must take (at least)children’s language exposure into account in order to provide an appropriateassessment of their linguistic abilities. Given the importance of standardisedtests and their wide use for a variety of purposes, adoption of a model thatexplicitly takes account of the facts of bilingual development is warranted.

Such a standardised test is of course just a first step in the evaluation of achild’s language abilities. In the case of Welsh, for example, our goal is todevelop a battery of tests that will identify children’s knowledge in a wide setof sub-areas of the language (e.g. targeting particular types of structures). But,particularly in the case of a minority language like Welsh, for which normaldevelopmental stages and patterns are not known, identifying those normalpaths is an essential first step. (In a case like English, in contrast, it is easy toidentify normal trajectories of development, as the acquisition of English hasbeen widely studied and documented. Developing tools for assessment ofbilinguals’ knowledge of English in such a case is quite a different matter,because the normal patterns of development are widely understood.)Researchers, educators, speech therapists and other language practitionerscan then use such a test as one component alongside others in their assessmentof the needs of bilingual children.

Correspondence

Any correspondence should be directed to Professor Virginia C. MuellerGathercole, School of Psychology, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, UK([email protected]).

Notes1. This is to be contrasted with criterion-referenced testing or curriculum related

assessment, in which a given individual’s performance is measured against someinstructional objective, usually identified by some experts (Brown & Hudson, 2002;Popham, 1975). Criterion-referenced testing is ‘closely linked to a curriculum’ andcould reflect ‘differences in pedagogical decision-making’ (Lee, 2003). A criterion-referenced test, for example, might be used in relation to second-languageteaching, in which explicit stated goals are set at the outset of the course structure(see Bond, 1996). A norm-referenced language test assumes, in contrast, that


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

children generally develop language naturally and appropriately, so the normscapture what the natural stages in development are observed to be. Such a normedtest for vocabulary or other aspect of language can of course be used in conjunctionwith a criterion-referenced test. The choice will depend on the goals and purposesof the use of the test, as well as on the linguistic and cultural diversity of the groupsto be assessed (e.g. Frederickson & Cline, 1996).

2. Note, however, that this does not necessarily go in both directions: a child can havedifficulties with both languages for other reasons as well � e.g. limited input inboth.

3. We also considered classifying participants according to the language of instruc-tion in the school. However, reliable data concerning the language of instruction ineach school was not available. If such information is available for other children inparticular bilingual settings, such information can be taken into considerationin the norming of a test for that group of bilinguals. It is worth noting that in ourprevious work, home language has been much more predictive of performance onWelsh than school language (see, e.g. Gathercole & Thomas, 2005; Gathercole et al.,2005).

4. This information was supplemented in some cases by a further detailedquestionnaire handed out to parents/guardians. A few of those questionnaires(145) were returned. In three cases, the parents did not specify home languageinformation. For the remaining 142 cases, 83.1% (i.e. 118) of the responses matchedexactly. And if we allow that a difference in response of one degree (e.g. a parentanswers OWH, the child WEH, or a parent answers WEH and the child OWH) iscloser than one of two degrees (one answers OWH, the other OEH), correlationsbetween children’s responses and those of their parents/guardians were high: r�0.882. (In fact there was no case of a discrepancy of two degrees.) The discrepancieswere about equal in whether the child reported more or less Welsh than the parent.However, interestingly, where the child and the adult differed in their classifica-tion, the child was more likely to include both languages (WEH) when the parentanswered only one (OWH or OEH) � 75% of the cases � than vice versa.We do not wish to suggest that we underestimate the difficulty of measuring thelevel of input a given child has in each of his/her languages and recognise that theinput can vary according to social and cultural variables as well (e.g. Ortiz & Yates,2001). However, we were seeking a tool that could be used fairly easily as an initialscreening measure by teachers and language professionals, but that would takeinto account potential language background differences across children. For thesereasons, all children were assigned to their language group based on their ownresponses on the initial sheet. It is clear, however, that when a given child’slanguage background or level of ability with Welsh is in question, the researcher orprofessional should seek further confirmation and exploration of the child’s casebefore drawing any hard and fast conclusions.

5. When there is doubt about the proper categorisation by Home Language, the mostconservative choice should be made. That is, if it is not clear whether the childshould be assigned to the OWH or the WEH group, s/he should be assigned to theWEH group; if it is unclear whether a child should be assigned to the WEH or theOEH group, s/he should be assigned to the OEH group.Also, in a few cases, a given child may be learning Welsh alongside a languageother than English (e.g. Welsh and French, Welsh and Urdu, etc.). If such a child isgrowing up with just two languages, the standardisation norms that should beconsulted should be those of the WEH or OEH group, the former if the twolanguages are both used in the home, the latter if the non-Welsh language is thelanguage of the home.In some other cases, a child may be learning more than two languages (e.g. Welsh,English and Urdu). In such a case, the standardised norms can only be taken assuggestive. Either the WEH or OEH norms should be consulted, depending on theamount of Welsh used in the home: WEH if Welsh is used at all in the home; OEHif Welsh is not used at all in the home.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

References

Artiles, A. and Ortiz, A. (eds) (2002a) English Language Learners with Special EducationNeeds: Identification, Assessment and Instruction. McHenry, IL: Center for AppliedLinguistics and Delta Systems Co., Inc.

Artiles, A. and Ortiz, A. (2002b) English language learners with special educationneeds: Contexts and possibilities. In A. Artiles and A. Ortiz (eds) English LanguageLearners with Special Education Needs: Identification, Assessment and Instruction(pp. 3�30). McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems Co., Inc.

Bates, E. and Goodman, J.C. (1997) On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon:Evidence from acquisition, aphasia and real-time processing. In G. Altmann (ed.)(Special issue on the lexicon) Language and Cognitive Processes 12, 507�586.

Bates, E. and Goodman, J.C. (1999) On the emergence of grammar from the lexicon. InB. MacWhinney (ed.) The Emergence of Language (pp. 29�79). Mahwah, NJ: LawrenceErlbaum Associates.

Bates, E., Bretherton, I. and Snyder, L. (1988) From First Words to Grammar: IndividualDifferences and Dissociable Mechanisms. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Bond, L.A. (1996) Norm- and criterion-referenced testing. Practical Assessment, Research& Evaluation 5 (2).

Bretherton, I., McNew, S., Snyder, L. and Bates, E. (1983) Individual differences at20 months. Journal of Child Language 10, 293�320.

Brown, J.D. and Hudson, T. (2002) Criterion-referenced Language Testing. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Brownell, R. (2000a) Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test: Spanish-BilingualEdition. Novato, CA: Academic Therapy Publications.

Brownell, R. (2000b) Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test: Spanish-Bilingual Edition.Novato, CA: Academic Therapy Publications.

Cline, T. (ed.) (1992) The Assessment of Special Educational Needs: An InternationalPerspective. London: Routledge.

Cline, T. (1998) The assessment of special educational needs for bilingual children.British Journal of Special Education 25 (4), 159�163.

Conboy, B.T. and Thal, D.J. (2006) Ties between the lexicon and grammar: Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of bilingual toddlers. Child Development 77 (3),712�735.

Conti-Ramsden, G. and Jones, M. (1997) Verb use in specific language impairment.Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 40, 1298�1313.

Dunn, L.M., Dunn, L.M. and Whetton, C. (1982) The British Picture Vocabulary Scale:Manual for the Short and Long Forms. NFER-NELSON.

Dunn, L.M., Dunn, L.M., Whetton, C. and Burley, J. (1997) The British Picture VocabularyScale: Second Edition. NFER-NELSON.

Ellis, N.C., O’Dochartaigh, C., Hicks, W., Morgan, M. and Laporte, N. (2001) CronfaElectroneg o Gymraeg [A 1 million word lexical database and frequency count for Welsh].University of Wales Bangor: School of Psychology. On WWW at http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ar/cb/ceg/ceg_cym.html.

Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J., Bates, E., Thal, D. and Pethick, S. (1994) Variability inearly communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in ChildDevelopment 59 (5, Serial No. 242).

Frederickson, N. and Cline, T. (1996) The development of a model of curriculum relatedassessment. In T. Cline and N. Frederickson (eds) Curriculum Related Assessment:Cummins and Bilingual Children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Gathercole, V.C.M. (2002a) Command of the mass/count distinction in bilingual andmonolingual children: An English morphosyntactic distinction. In D. KimbroughOller and R.E. Eilers (eds) Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children (pp. 175�206).Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Gathercole, V.C.M. (2002b) Grammatical gender in bilingual and monolingual children:A Spanish morphosyntactic distinction. In D. Kimbrough Oller and R.E. Eilers (eds)


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children (pp. 207�219). Clevedon: MultilingualMatters.

Gathercole, V.C.M. (2002c) Monolingual and bilingual acquisition: Learning differenttreatments of that � trace phenomena in English and Spanish. In D. Kimbrough Ollerand R.E. Eilers (eds) Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children (pp. 220�254).Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Gathercole, V.C.M. (ed.) (2007a) Language Transmission in Bilingual Families in Wales.Cardiff: Welsh Language Board.

Gathercole, V.C.M. (2007b) Miami and North Wales, so far and yet so near:Constructivist account of morpho-syntactic development in bilingual children.International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 10, 224�247.

Gathercole, V.C.M. and Hoff, E. (2007) Input and the acquisition of language: Threequestions. In E. Hoff and M. Shatz (eds) The Handbook of Language Development.Blackwell Publishers.

Gathercole, V.C.M. and Thomas, E.M. (2005) Minority language survival: Input factorsinfluencing the acquisition of Welsh. In J. Cohen, K. McAlister, K. Rolstad and J.MacSwan (eds) ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism.Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Gathercole, V.C.M., Laporte, N. and Thomas, E.M. (2005) Differentiation, carry-over,and the distributed characteristic in bilinguals: Structural ‘mixing’ of the twolanguages? In J. Cohen, K. McAlister, K. Rolstad and J. MacSwan (eds) ISB4:Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism. Somerville, MA:Cascadilla Press.

Gathercole, V.C.M., Thomas, E.M. and Laporte, N. (2001) The acquisition of gramma-tical gender in Welsh. Journal of Celtic Language Learning 6, 53�87.

Gentner, D. and Boroditsky, L. (in press) Early acquisition of nouns and verbs: Evidencefrom Navajo. In V.C. Gathercole (ed.) Routes to Language: Studies in Honor of MelissaBowerman. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Grosjean, F. (1997) The bilingual individual. Interpreting 2 (1/2), 163�187.Grosjean, F. (1998/2004) Studying bilinguals: Methodological and conceptual issues.

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1 (2), 131�149. Also in T.K. Bhatia and W.C.Ritchie (eds) The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 32�63). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Haertel, E. (1985) Construct validity and criterion-referenced testing. Review ofEducational Research 55 (1), 23�46.

Hakansson, G., Salameh, E.-K. and Nettelbladt, U. (2003) Measuring languagedevelopment in bilingual children: Swedish-Arabic children with and withoutlanguage impairment. Linguistics 41�2, 255�288.

Hart, B. and Risley, T.R. (1995) Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of YoungAmerican Children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.

Hoff, E. and Elledge, C. (2005) Bilingualism as one of many environmental variablesthat affect language development. In J. Cohen, K. McAlister, K. Rolstad and J.MacSwan (eds) ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism(pp. 1034�1040). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Hoff, E. and McKay, J. (2005) Phonological memory skill in monolingual and bilingual23-month-olds. In J. Cohen, K. McAlister, K. Rolstad and J. MacSwan (eds) ISB4:Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism (pp. 1041�1044).Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Jones, B.M. (2001) Cronfeydd Data Iaith Plant/Child Language Databases. On WWW athttp://www.aber.ac.uk/education/Abercld/cyntaf.html. (10/09/08).

Jones, M. and Conti-Ramsden, G. (1997) A comparison of verb use in children with SLIand their younger siblings. First Language 17, 165�193.

Kupisch, T. (2003) On the relation between input frequency and acquisition patternsfrom a cross-linguistic perspective. In J. van Kampen and S. Baauw (eds) Proceedingsof GALA 2003. LOT Occasional Series.

Lee, H.-J. (2003) Review of J.D. Brown & T. Hudson (2002) Criterion-referenced languagetesting. TESL-EJ 7 (2).


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Leech, G., Rayson, P. and Wilson, A. (2001) Word Frequencies in Written and SpokenEnglish: Based on the British National Corpus. London: Longman.

Lewis, W.G. (2003) Addysg Gynradd Gymraeg: Trochi a Chyfoethogi Disgyblion. WelshJournal of Education 12 (2), 49�64.

Marchman, V.A. and Bates, E. (1994) Continuity in lexical and morphologicaldevelopment: A test of the critical mass hypothesis. Journal of Child Language 21,339�365.

Mattes, L.J. (1995) Bilingual Vocabulary Assessment Measure. Oceanside, CA: AcademicCommunication Associates.

McCarthy, D. (1972) McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities. San Antonio: HarcourtAssessment.

Meisel, J. (1989) Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K.Hyltenstam and L. Obler (eds) Bilingualism Across the Lifespan: Aspects of Acquisition,Maturity, and Loss (pp. 13�40). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Meisel, J. (2001) The simultaneous acquisition of two first languages: Early differentia-tion and subsequent development of grammars. In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds)Trends in Bilingual Acquisition (pp. 11�41). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Munoz-Sandoval, A.F., Cummins, J., Alvarado, G. and Ruef, M.L. (2005) Bilingual VerbalAbility Test. Scarborough, ON: Thomson Nelson.

Munro, S., Ball, M., Muller, N., Duckworth, M. and Lyddy, F. (2005) Phonologicalacquisition in Welsh�English bilingual children. Journal of Multilingual Communica-tion Disorders 3 (1), 24�49.

Oller, D.K. (2005) The distributed characteristic in bilingual learning. In J. Cohen, K.McAlister, K. Rolstad and J. MacSwan (eds) ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th InternationalSymposium on Bilingualism (pp. 1744�1749). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Oller, D.K. and Eilers, R. (2002a) Balancing interpretations regarding effects ofbilingualism: Empirical outcomes and theoretical possibilities. In D.K. Oller and R.Eilers (eds) Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children. Clevedon: MultilingualMatters.

Oller, D.K. and Eilers, R.E. (eds) (2002b) Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children.Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Ortiz, A. (2002) Prevention of school failure and early intervention for English languagelearners. In A. Artiles and A. Ortiz (eds) English Language Learners with SpecialEducation Needs: Identification, Assessment and Instruction (pp. 31�50). McHenry, IL:Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems Co., Inc.

Ortiz, A. and Kushner, M. (1997) Bilingualism and the possible impact on academicperformance. Child Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 6, 657�679.

Ortiz, A. and Yates, J. (2001) A framework for serving English language learners withdisabilities. Journal of Special Education Leadership 14 (2), 72�80.

Ortiz, A. and Yates, J. (2002) Considerations in the assessment of English languagelearners referred to special education. In A. Artiles and A. Ortiz (eds) EnglishLanguage Learners with Special Education Needs: Identification, Assessment and Instruc-tion (pp. 65�86). McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems Co.,Inc.

Ortiz, A., Garcıa, S., Holtzman, W., Polyzoi, E., Snell, W., Wilkinson, C. and Willig, A.(1985) Characteristics of Limited English Proficient Hispanic Students in Programs of theLearning Disabled: Implications for Policy, Practice and Research. Austin: University ofTexas, Handicapped Minority Research Institute on Language Proficiency.

Ortiz, A., Garcıa, S., Wheeler, D. and Maldonado-Colon, E. (1986) Characteristics ofLimited English Proficient Students Served in Programs for the Speech and LanguageHandicapped: Implications for Policy, Practice and Research. Austin: University of Texas,Handicapped Minority Research Institute on Language Proficiency.

Paradis, M. and Libben, G. (1987) The Assessment of Bilingual Aphasia. Hillsdale, NJ:Erlbaum.

Pearson, B.Z. and Fernandez, S. (1994) Patterns of interaction in the lexical growth intwo languages of bilingual infants and toddlers. Language Learning 44, 617�653.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Pearson, B.Z., Fernandez, S. and Oller, D.K. (1993) Lexical development in bilingualinfants and toddlers: Comparison to monolingual norms. Language Learning 43,93�120.

Pearson, B.Z., Fernandez, S. and Oller, D.K. (1995) Cross-language synonyms in thelexicons of bilingual infants: One language or two? Journal of Child Language 22,345�368.

Popham, J.W. (1975) Educational Evaluation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.Reynell, J. (1987) Reynell Developmental Language Scales: Welsh Adaptation. NFER-

NELSON.Rieckborn, S. (2005) The development of tense and aspect in balanced and unbalanced

bilingual children. ISB5, Barcelona, March 2005.Rieckborn, S. (2006) The development of forms and functions in the acquisition of tense

and aspect in German�French bilingual children. In C. Lleo (ed.) Interfaces inMultilingualism: Acquisition and Representation (pp. 61�89). Amsterdam: JohnBenjamins.

Snyder, L., Bates, E. and Bretherton, I. (1981) Content and context in early lexicaldevelopment. Journal of Child Language 8, 565�582.

Thomas, E.M. and Gathercole, V.C.M. (2007) Bilingual children’s acquisition of complexrule systems in a minority language situation: The effects of varying amounts oninput on achievement. 6th International Symposium on Bilingualism, University ofHamburg, Germany, May 30�June 2.

Thomas, P.W. (1996) Gramadeg y Gymraeg. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Thorne, D.A. (1993) A Comprehensive Welsh Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Umbel, V.M., Pearson, B.Z., Fernandez, M.C. and Oller, D.K. (1992) Measuring bilingual

children’s receptive vocabularies. Child Development 63, 1012�1020.Verhoeven, L. and Vermeer, A. (1993) Taaltoets Allochtone Kinderen Bovenbouw [Language

Tests for Minority Children]. Tilburg, The Netherlands: Zwijsen.Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (2003) Harcourt Assessment,

Inc.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Flor

ida

Inte

rnat

iona

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:33

16

Mar

ch 2

016

Designing a Normed Receptive Vocabulary Test for Bilingual Populations: A Model from Welsh

Documents

Transcript of Designing a Normed Receptive Vocabulary Test for Bilingual Populations: A Model from Welsh