Bilingualism and the Measurement of Intelligence and Verbal Learning Ability

Hickey, Tom

doi:10.1177/001440297203900103

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Also, the particular tasks and stimulus material that are used are expected to, due to e.g., cultural diversity or a non-overlapping proficiency in both languages, affect children's results. The non-overlapping proficiency across languages have for instance been reflected in u-shaped difficulty levels for Spanish-English bilingual children rather than the expected linear increased difficulty level that is reported for monolingual children (Hickey 1972;Restrepo & Silverman 2001;Umbel et al 1992). This u-shaped difficulty level has been argued to be due to the early acquired words and constructions being learnt in the home in L1 but not L2, such that the initial sections in a test are particularly difficult in L2.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Comprehending L2 Comprehension: A study of Arabic-Swedish bilingual preschoolers’ performance on a Swedish proficiency test

Andersson

Lindfors

Hansson

2022

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About a fifth of all children in Sweden learn the societal language Swedish outside of the home, i.e., they have Swedish as a second language (L2). Many of these children have lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, which predicts lower language proficiency. The aim of the present study is twofold: to contribute to a greater understanding of L2-Swedish proficiency in preschoolers with lower SES backgrounds, and to find out how proficiency tests should be adapted for bilingual children such that the tests are valid, i.e., unbiased to the language status (L1 or L2). We investigate test performance on a Swedish receptive language proficiency test (the Comprehension scale of The New Reynell Developmental Language Scales, NRDLS) which has a monolingual norming sample. The participants are 51 bilingual children (3-5-years of age) with Arabic as their L1, and who attend preschools in Swedish neighborhoods with lower SES. Results indicate that in contrast to the norming sample, bilingual children’s raw scores for subsections of the test are not progressively more difficult. Thus, we need to be aware that bilingual children’s high proficiency in a particular aspect of the language does not necessarily imply that they are proficient in aspects that would be considered easier from a monolingual perspective. In addition, there are indications that unfamiliarity with L2 lexical items, that are typically acquired early in L1, causes bilingual children to fail on tasks aimed at assessing syntactic skills, even though they appear to understand the syntactic pattern. We conclude with suggestions for special considerations and adaptations to assess individual L2-comprehension in preschoolers more accurately, such that practitioners in turn can support the children’s language development.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Comprehending L2 Comprehension: A study of Arabic-Swedish bilingual preschoolers’ performance on a Swedish proficiency test

Andersson

Lindfors

Hansson

2022

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“…In addition, there are significant languagerelated factors that affect the assessment of bilinguals. Some of these factors are lexical, morphological, syntactical, and phonological interferences from one language to the other, as well as possible structural and idiomatic differences between the two languages (Hickey, 1972;Matluck & Mace, 1973).…”

Section: Conceptual Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing linguistic minorities.

Olmedo¹

1981

American Psychologist

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Olmedo suggests thai psychological and educational testing of members of linguistic minority groups should take into account the diverse social, political, and economic realities currently facing these groups. These realities are moderated by educational opportunities, which in turn are closely linked to various forms of standardized testing. Olmedo describes key conceptual and operational issues. Conceptual issues include bilingualism, acculturation, and the "emicetic" distinction, particularly as the latter applies to the cross-cultural generalizability of cognitive constructs. Operational issues include assessment of language dominance, test translation and development, and the examiner variable. The author argues for sensitivity to individual differences in sociocultural and linguistic characteristics. -The EditorsThe views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the American Psychological Association, which can only be set by the Council of Representatives.

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“…A small but nonetheless significant literature suggests that scores on educationally related tests may be improved significantly for minorities and that some important sources of error in their measurement may be reduced by such techniques as employing ethnic examiners and by utilizing different testing procedures. (See, for example, Bernal, 1974;Garcia & Zimmerman, 1972;.Haggard, 1954.-) Linguistic characteristics (Matluck & Mace, 1973), cross-language interference (Hickey, 1972), and test format (Johnson & Michal, 1973) are also factors that need more exploration.…”

Section: A Response To "Educational Uses Of Tests With Disadvantaged ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A response to "Educational uses of tests with disadvantaged students."

Bernal¹

1975

American Psychologist

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Bilingualism and the Measurement of Intelligence and Verbal Learning Ability

Cited by 12 publications

References 4 publications

Comprehending L2 Comprehension: A study of Arabic-Swedish bilingual preschoolers’ performance on a Swedish proficiency test

Comprehending L2 Comprehension: A study of Arabic-Swedish bilingual preschoolers’ performance on a Swedish proficiency test

Testing linguistic minorities.

A response to "Educational uses of tests with disadvantaged students."

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