ASU in the Community - Faculty Develop Spanish Screener for Language Disorders

Faculty Develop Spanish Screener for Language Disorders

Faculty members Laida Restrepo and Shelley Gray in ASU’s Department of Speech and Hearing Science and Joanna Gorin in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education have been awarded a $1.6 million grant to develop a Spanish language screening measure to identify children at risk for language impairment. The four-year grant has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences.

There are currently no measures of language impairment designed specifically for Spanish speaking children. Existing tools have been translated from English to Spanish with the assumption that a translation is a valid measure. However, the tools do not take into account, changes in language complexity, cultural background or literacy. This can result in unidentified language impairment in children who need treatment or in children who have typical language abilities being identified as having a language disorder.

Gorin will help create the new screening measure in Spanish working with Spanish language items, for children ages four to eight, generated by Restrepo and Gray. This unique collaboration exemplifies the benefit of leveraging expert knowledge from different disciplines.

The hope is to develop a universal screening tool for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students across the United States and for speech-language pathologists to assess first- through-second-grade students who have been referred by teachers, physicians or parents. The belief is that early and accurate identification of learning impairment risk will lead to timely evaluation, identification and treatment. As a result, English language learners can be more successful academically, which ultimately impacts academic achievement in U.S. schools.

For more information, visit http://asunews.asu.edu/20080506_spanishscreener.