The clinical utility of nonword repetition for children living in the rural south of the US

Abstract

Nonword repetition (NWR) tasks have been shown to minimize cultural biases in language assessment. In the current study, we further examined the clinical utility of NWR with 83 children who lived in the rural south of the US; 33 were African American and 50 were White, with 16 classified as specifically language impaired (SLI) 6-year-olds and 67 classified as either agematched or younger controls. Main effects were found for group, with the children in the SLI group earning lower NWR scores than the controls. A main effect for syllable length but not race was also documented. The group and syllable length effects could not be explained by differences in the children's articulation abilities or by potential differences in the children's use of vernacular dialect. Discriminant analysis indicated that NWR had a diagnostic accuracy rate of 81% for the 6-year-olds, but sensitivity was low (56%). When combined with scores from one other nonbiased assessment tool, however, the diagnostic accuracy of NWR increased to 90%, with rates of sensitivity and specificity above 80%.

Empirically Derived Combinations of Tools and Clinical Cutoffs: An Illustrative Case With a Sample of Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Children

“…As reported in Oetting and Cleveland (2006), a similar main effect for clinical status, but not race, was found for this tool. These findings are consistent with the CSSB results, and they also replicate those of Ellis Weismer et al (2000).…”

“…Using this same cutoff with 5-year-olds, however, led to lower classification rates (Se = .59; Sp = 1.00), although these values increased slightly (Se = .66 and Sp = 1.00) when the 25th percentile (~ −.67 SD) was employed as the cut-off. In a study examining the NRT data presented in the current article, Oetting and Cleveland (2006) reported similar findings for 6-year-olds. Using the experimental NRT task from Dollaghan and Campbell (1998) and an empirically derived cutoff of 70% correct, this tool yielded sensitivity and specificity rates of .56 and .92, respectively.…”

“…As reported in Oetting and Cleveland (2006), 2 children with impairment and 4 without were unable to complete the NRT due to their unwillingness to attempt the task. Thus, the current analyses were completed with data from 52 participants.…”

“…As reported in Oetting and Cleveland (2006), the NRT was administered by recording the 16 nonce words onto the audio track of a videotape. During the audio presentation, the video track presented a solid blue background.…”

“…Another appealing feature of NRTs is that the phonemes used to make up the nonsense words can be selected from a child's existing phonological repertoire. Before the data collection phase of the current project, and since that time, findings from a number of studies support the use of NRTs for a wide range of diverse language learners, including children from minority backgrounds and multilingual backgrounds (Bishop, North, & Donlan, 1996;Campbell, Dollaghan, Needleman, & Janosky, 1997; ContiRamsden, 2003;Conti-Ramsden, Botting, & Faragher, 2001;Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998;Ellis Weismer et al, 2000;Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990;Laing & Kamhi, 2003;Oetting & Cleveland, 2006;Rodekohr & Haynes, 2001;Thal, Miller, Carlson, & Vega, 2005; but see also Crago & Goswami, 2006;Stokes, Wong, Fletcher, & Leonard, 2006). For example, Ellis Weismer et al's study included five-hundred-eighty-one 7-to 8-year-olds (164 with language impairment; 417 without), of which 15% were from a minority racial and/or ethnic group (i.e., African American, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian).…”