Taaldiagnostiek Bij Meertalige Kinderen: Problemen En Oplossingen

The need for unbiased methods of assessing children's development is an ongoing concern. Inspired by the psychometric tradition of intellectual assessment, traditional norm-referenced language tests rely heavily on children's previous experience, or 'world knowledge'. When test takers differ in their exposure to concepts, words and activities, as is often the case with children from different ethnic, cultural, or economic backgrounds, any assessment tool that taps the child's existing store of knowledge runs the risk of confusing 'difference' with 'disorder'. In recent years, a number of alternative assessment procedures have been developed that reduce some of the biases inherent in norm-referenced standardized tests. This article discusses some problems and recent solutions to the use of norm-referenced testing, with a focus on processing dependent procedures such as non-word repetition.