Dynamic Assessment of Narratives: Efficient, Accurate Identification of Language Impairment in Bilingual Students

Purpose: This study investigated the classification accuracy of a concentrated English narrative dynamic assessment (DA) for identifying language impairment (LI). Method: Forty-two Spanish-English bilingual kindergarten to third-grade children (10 LI and 32 with no LI) were administered two 25-min DA test-teach-test sessions. Pre- and posttest narrative retells were scored in real time. Using a structured intervention approach, examiners taught children missing story grammar elements and subordination. A posttest was administered using a parallel story. Results: Four classification predictors were analyzed: posttest scores, gain scores, modifiability ratings, and teaching duration. Discriminant function analysis indicated that an overall modifiability rating was the best classifier, with 100% sensitivity and 88% specificity after 1 DA session and 100% sensitivity and specificity after 2 sessions. Any 2 combinations of posttest scores, modifiability ratings, and teaching duration for just 1 session resulted in sensitivity and specificity rates over 90%. Receiver operating characteristic analyses were used to identify clinically usable cutoff points. Post hoc exploration indicated that similar results could be obtained after only one 5-10-min teaching cycle, potentially further abbreviating the DA process. Conclusion: Concentrated English narrative DA results in high classification accuracy for bilingual children with and without LI. This efficient version of DA is amenable to clinical use.