Norm-Referenced Testing (W6-7)

Question 1

What is norm-referenced testing?

Answer 1

You have psychometric standardized scores to compare it to

Question 2

Which do you think is easier for a parent to understand - standard scores or age equivalence?

Answer 2

Age equivalence

Question 3

Definition of age equivalence score

Answer 3

Find the age ground thats median score is your child’s raw score

Question 4

What is the problem with AE scores?

Answer 4

• Do not take variability into account so you don’t really know how to interpret the score
• The scale changes with age

Question 5

What do you report, standard scores and/or age/grade equivalents?

Answer 5

Also explain and report the standard score, but you should also use percentiles because they’re easier to understand than AE or SS

Question 6

What are the two methods for determining the cut off for the presence/absence of a disorder

Answer 6

1- pick a cut-off criteria (z-score) and use it (for any test)
2- Find an empirically derived cutoff score from test/s that report acceptable levels of sensitivity and specificity

Question 7

Which method for determining a cutoff score is almost always used?

Answer 7

-Picking a cut-off criteria (z-score) and using it for any and all tests

Question 8

Using one cutoff score for all tests results in what?

Answer 8

-under-identification of kids with LI (because it’s normally distributed, so if the school requires 1.5 SD below the mean, it’s missing a lot of kids on the high end of LI)

Question 9

Which tests had the smallest group differences?

Answer 9

vocabulary tests

Question 10

Which tests had the largest group differences?

Answer 10

-morphosyntax tests

Question 11

Omnibus reading test - GORT-5 (what does the kid do)

Answer 11

• Read passages aloud (range from easiest to hardest)
• Examiner notes errors & time
• Child then answers questions

Question 12

What scores does the GORT-5 result in?

Answer 12

-Accuracy (errors)
-Speed (time - called ‘rate’)
-Fluency = accuracy + speed
Comprehension (generated from questions)
Oral reading quotient = fluency + comprehension

Question 13

Omnibus reading test - WRMT-III (what does the kid do)

Answer 13

• Phonological awareness (first sound matching, last sound matching, rhyme production, blending, deletion)
• Listening comp
• Letter ID
• Word ID (decoding real words)
• Rapid automatic naming
• Oral reading fluency
• Word attack (decoding nonsense words)
• Word comp (antonyms, synonyms, analogies)
• Passage comp

Question 14

If children are not decoding well, what might be going on?

Answer 14

Dyslexia!

Question 15

What should you assess if you suspect dyslexia?

Answer 15

• Listening comp vs. reading comp. (should be a discrepancy)
• All components of phonological processing (awareness, memory, retrieval)
• Non-word repetition

Question 16

If children don’t perform well on reading comprehension, what might be going on?

Answer 16

-May have dyslexia or SCD

Question 17

What should you assess if they aren’t performing well on reading comprehension?

Answer 17

• Look at decoding time, fluency

- Look at general oral language to determine if there is a discrepancy or not

Question 18

Reading comp testing: a caveat – There is a trade off between _________ and _______ in these tests.

Answer 18

It’s really hard to test well! - there is a trade off between reliability and validity in these tests (the MC questions can be answered without the passage – the fill in the blank are more reliable but harder to score)

Question 19

T/F: psychoeducational evaluations complement, but also overlap with, language evaluations.

Answer 19

TRUE

Question 20

What do IQ tests assess and how is it assessed in school-aged children?

Answer 20

WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) is the most common for kids 6-16 y/o (younger version is WPPSI)
*IQ tests test ABILITY

Question 21

What do achievement tests asses and how are they assessed?

Answer 21

• Achievement tests assess performance / knowledge

- Assessed with the Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Battery III

Question 22

T/F: Under traditional LD models, discrepancies between IQ and achievement indicate LD

Answer 22

TRUE