The Dimensionality of Oral Language Ability: Evidence From Young Greek Children

Abstract

Purpose This study investigated component skills in oral language development utilizing and validating a new assessment battery in a large ( N = 800) and representative sample of Greek students 4–7 years of age. Method All participants enrolled in public schools from four geographical regions (Attica, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Crete) that varied demographically (urban, semiurban, and rural). For the individualized language assessments, we utilized mobile devices (tablet PC) to ensure children's interest and joyful participation as well as reliable administration procedures across sites. Results by confirmatory factor analyses specified and validated five different models in each grade to identify the best conceptualization of language dimensionality in the respective age groups. Results Four-dimensional model provided a slightly better discriminant validity in language data of the preschool group. However, in kindergarten and first grades, the five-dimensional model had the best fit to the data to the four-dimensional. Conclusion These findings support the multidimensionality of oral language ability at this phase of development and increase of factor distinctiveness as children grow. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12649214

Logometro®: The psychometric properties of a norm-referenced digital battery for language assessment of Greek-speaking 4–7 years old children

“…The distinction between Listening Comprehension and Vocabulary Knowledge tasks was not supported by the tests of factorial validity resulting to a merged factor. Such finding confirms prior conceptualization of oral language domains for this age group that does not distinguish oral language (Listening Comprehension) from lexical/semantic knowledge (Vocabulary Knowledge) and supports the consolidation of foundational skills involving words, sentences, and discourse skills in preschoolers and early years children ( Mouzaki et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, this finding is partially justified by the high similarity among the respective tasks: both listening comprehension and receptive vocabulary tasks invited children to look at four different pictures and then to choose the picture that best represented the word -or the sentence- that was heard.…”

“…In the free narration task, each child looked at an illustrated story accompanied by six pictures which were age relevant and was asked to produce a story based on the pictures. Both narrative tasks were analyzed according to microstructure and macrostructure criteria (for more details see Mouzaki et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Language assessment tools usually focus on one or more language subcomponents, such as phonology, vocabulary knowledge, narration, morphology, and pragmatics (e.g., CELF-5, Wiig et al, 2013 ; Preschool Language Scale, Zimmerman et al, 1979 ). These language sub components have a discrete effect on overall language competence and -when combined- predict cognitive or academic difficulties ( Mouzaki et al, 2020 ). However, there are not many standardized psychometric tools for Greek-speaking children, and not only, that utilize all language subcomponents in order to provide a holistically, psychometrically sound and clinically accurate profile.…”

Development of Structural and Pragmatic Language Skills in Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

“…For example, in a scenario with a happy child sitting on the only available swing and two sad children looking at him, one of the related questions was “What should the children say to the boy in order to swing as well?” Criteria used to assess responses include understanding speakers’ intention (i.e., children are requesting something), request for a specific reaction (e.g., for the child to get off the swing), politeness/kindness (e.g., use of the word “please”), expression of feelings (e.g., we are sad that we cannot swing too), and so on. (For a more detailed description of the task, see Mouzaki et al, 2020).…”

Early oral language precursors of different types of reading difficulties in a consistent orthography

“…Previous research has highlighted the relative importance of specific oral language skills on later reading failure indexed by various reading outcomes (Hulme and Snowling, 2014), and documented the multidimensionality of oral language skills in the first elementary grades (Mouzaki et al, 2020). However, the predictive value of a wider repertoire of oral language skills for specific RD subtypes remains unclear.…”