Students who work(ed) in the Literacy Development among Diverse Learners (LDDL) Lab are noted via *
Castilla-Earls, A., Ronderos, J., & Fitton, L. (2022). Can bilingual children self-report their bilingual experience and proficiency? The Houston Questionnaire. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00675
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Abstract - Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop a child self-report questionnaire measuring bilingual experience and self-perceptions of Spanish and English proficiency and establish preliminary evidence of validity and reliability for the questionnaire. Method: Participants included 113 Spanish–English bilingual children with and without developmental language disorders ranging in age from 4 to 8 years. All children completed the questionnaire in Spanish and participated in behavioral assessment of their language skills in both Spanish and English. Results: Using confirmatory factor analysis, a model with three correlated factors (self-perception of proficiency in Spanish, self-perception of proficiency in English, and bilingual experience) emerged with the best global fit, reasonableness, consistency with theory, and model parsimony, suggesting that the questionnaire has good internal reliability. The scaled results of the questionnaires significantly correlated with behavioral measures of both Spanish and English, supporting the convergent validity of the measure. Conclusions: The Houston Questionnaire is an assessment tool for the assessment of bilingual experience and self-perception of proficiency in Spanish and English bilingual children between the ages of 4 and 8 years. The results provide foundational evidence supporting the reliability and convergent validity of this tool.
Goodrich, J. M., Fitton, L., & Thayer, L. (accepted). Relations between oral language skills and English reading ability among Spanish-English bilingual children: A quantile regression analysis. Annals of Dyslexia. *Special Issue Selected Manuscript: Understanding Reading Difficulties in Bilingual/Multilingual Learners.
Wofford, M. C., Cano, J., Goodrich, J. M., & Fitton, L., (2022). Tell or retell? The role of task and language in Spanish-English narrative microstructure performance. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00055
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Abstract - Purpose: This study examined performance of dual language learners (DLLs) on Spanish- and English-language narrative story retells and unique tells. Transcription and analysis focused on comparisons of common microstructural language sample measures in Spanish and English across tasks. Each language sample measure was evaluated for its possible convergence with norm-referenced standardized assessments for DLL children. Method: Spanish–English DLLs (N = 133) enrolled in English-only kindergarten or first-grade classrooms completed two-language sample tasks (one in each language), which were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2017) for measures of syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance [MLU] in words), lexical diversity (number of different words [NDW]), and grammaticality (percent grammatical utterances [PGU]). Students also completed a norm-referenced sentence repetition task (Peña et al., 2014) and expressive vocabulary assessment (Martin, 2013). Results: Comparison of story retells and unique stories revealed similar performance on MLU, NDW, and PGU across elicitation techniques, with one exception: NDW in Spanish was higher in the story retell condition. Predictive models revealed several differences in the relations between the microstructure measures and norm-referenced language measures by elicitation technique, although neither context demonstrated a consistent advantage across all metrics. Conclusions: Measures derived from story retells and unique tells offer practical findings for speech-language pathologists and other educators to use in assessment of early grade DLLs. This work increases knowledge of procedural differences across narrative assessments and their influence on language variables, supporting school-based speech-language pathologists in making assessment decisions for DLLs on their caseload.
Goodrich, J. M., Fitton, L., Chan, J., & *Davis, C. J. (2022). Assessing oral language when screening multilingual children for learning disabilities in reading. Intervention in School and Clinic. https://doi.org/10.1177/10534512221081264 *Special Issue Invited Manuscript: Teacher and Speech/Language Pathologist Collaboration.
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Duff, D., Hendricks, A. E., Fitton, L., & Adlof, S. (2022). Reading and math achievement in children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder, or typical development: Achievement gaps persist from second through fourth grades. Journal of Learning Disabilities. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194221105515
Werfel, K., Reynolds, G., & Fitton, L. (2022). Oral language acquisition in preschool children who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 27(2), 166-178. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enab043
Fitton, L, Johnson, L., Wood, C. Schatschneider, C., & Hart, S. A. (2021). Language variation in the writing of African American students: Factors predicting reading achievement. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 30(6), 2653-2667. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_AJSLP-20-00263
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Purpose: This study aims to examine the predictive relation between measures obtained from African American students' written narrative language samples and reading achievement, as measured by standardized academic assessments. Method: Written language samples were elicited from 207 African American students in Grades 1–8. The samples were examined for morphosyntactic variations from standardized written Generalized American English (GAE). These variations were categorized as either (a) specific to African American English (AAE) or (b) neutral across AAE and standardized written GAE (i.e., considered ungrammatical both in AAE and in standardized written GAE). Structural equation modeling was employed to then examine the predictive relation between the density of AAE-specific forms in students' writing and their performance on standardized assessments of literacy and reading vocabulary. This relation was examined while accounting for the density of dialect-neutral morphosyntactic forms, reported family income, age, and written sample length. Results: The written samples were highly variable in terms of morphosyntax. Younger students and those from lower income homes tended to use AAE-specific forms at higher rates. However, the density of AAE-specific forms did not significantly predict standardized literacy scores or reading vocabulary after accounting for dialect-neutral variations, income, and sample length. Conclusions: These results support the ongoing need to better understand the language, literacy, and overall academic development of students from all backgrounds. It may be essential to focus on dialect-neutral language forms (i.e., morphosyntactic forms that are consistent across both AAE and standardized written GAE) in written samples to maximize assessment validity across students who speak varying dialects of English.
Tibi, S., Fitton, L., & McIlraith, A. (2021). The development of a measure of orthographic processing in the Arabic language: A psychometric evaluation. Applied Psycholinguistics, 42 (2). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716421000035
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Henbest, V. S., Fitton, L., Werfel, K. L., & Apel, K. (2020). The relation between linguistic awareness skills and spelling in adults: A comparison among scoring procedures. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(4), 1240-1253. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00120
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Purpose: Spelling is a skill that relies on an individual's linguistic awareness, the ability to overtly manipulate language. The ability to accurately spell is important for academic and career success into adulthood. The spelling skills of adults have received some attention in the literature, but there is limited information regarding which approach for analyzing adults' spelling is optimal for guiding instruction or intervention for those who struggle. Thus, we aimed to examine the concurrent validity of four different scoring methods for measuring adults' spellings (a dichotomous scoring method and three continuous methods) and to determine whether adults' linguistic awareness skills differentially predict spelling outcomes based on the scoring method employed. Method: Sixty undergraduate college students who were determined to be average readers as measured by a word reading and contextual word reading task were administered a spelling task as well as morphological, orthographic, phonemic, and syntactic awareness tasks. Results: All four scoring methods were highly correlated suggesting high concurrent validity among the measures. Two linguistic awareness skills, morphological awareness and syntactic awareness, predicted spelling performance on both the dichotomous and continuous scoring methods. Contrastively, phonemic awareness and orthographic awareness predicted spelling performance only when spelling was scored using a continuous measure error analysis. Conclusions: The results of this study confirm that multiple linguistic awareness skills are important for spelling in adults who are average readers. The results also highlight the need for using continuous measures of spelling when planning intervention or instruction, particularly in the areas of orthographic and phonemic awareness.
Werfel, K., Brooks, M., & Fitton, L. (2020). The comparative efficiency of speech sound interventions that differ by delivery modality: Flashcards versus tablet. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 42(1), 31-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525740119859520
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Fitton, L., Hoge, R., Petscher, Y., & Wood, C. (2019). Psychometric evaluation of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment Sentence Repetition task for clinical decision-making. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-L-18-0354
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was (a) to examine the underlying components or factor structure of the Bilingual English–Spanish Assessment (BESA; Peña, Gutiérrez-Clellen, Iglesias, Goldstein, & Bedore, 2014) sentence repetition task and (b) to examine the relationship between Spanish–English speaking children's sentence repetition and vocabulary performance. Method: Participants were 291 Spanish–English speaking children in kindergarten and 1st grade. Item analyses were used to evaluate the underlying factor structure for each language version of the sentence repetition tasks of the BESA. The tasks were then examined in relation to a measure of English receptive vocabulary. Results: Bifactor models, which include a single underlying general factor and multiple specific factors, provided the best overall model fit for both the Spanish and English versions of the task. There was no relation between children's overall Spanish sentence repetition performance and their English vocabulary. However, children's pronoun, noun phrase, and verb phrase item scores in Spanish significantly predicted their English vocabulary scores. For English sentence repetition, both children's overall performance and their specific performance on the noun phrase items were predictors of their English vocabulary scores. Follow-up analyses revealed that, for the purposes of clinical assessment, the BESA sentence repetition tasks can be considered essentially unidimensional, lending support to the current scoring structure of the test. Conclusions: Study findings suggest that sentence repetition tasks can provide insight into Spanish–English speaking children's vocabulary skills in addition to their morphosyntactic skills when used on a broad research scale. From a clinical assessment perspective, results indicate that the sentence repetition task has strong internal validity and support to the use of this measure in clinical practice.
Fitton, L.,McIlraith, A. L., & Wood, C. (2018). The impact of shared book reading on English language learners’ language and literacy outcomes: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 88 (5), 712-751. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654318790909
Wood, C., Fitton, L., Petscher, Y., Rodriguez, E., Sunderman, G. & Lim, T. (2018). The effect of ebook vocabulary instruction on Spanish-English speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-17-0368
Wood, C., Fitton, L., & Rodriguez, E. (2018). Home literacy of kindergarten Spanish-English speaking children from rural low SES backgrounds. AERA Open, 4(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858418769613
Fitton, L., Bustamante, K., & Wood, C. (2017). The social validity of telepractice among Spanish-speaking caregivers of English learners: An examination of moderators. International Journal of Telerehabilitation, 9(2). https://dx.doi.org/10.5195%2Fijt.2017.6227
Fitton, L., Wofford, M. C., Bustamante, K. N., De Novi, N., Nuñez, B., & Wood, C. L. (2017). Comparing methods for assessing the English grammatical development of Spanish-speaking English learners. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 2(16). https://doi.org/10.1044/persp2.SIG16.45
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Abstract:Identifying valid and informative approaches for assessing young English learners (ELs) is essential for school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The present paper focuses on two distinct approaches for assessing English grammatical development, a key component and indicator of language development for ELs. The approaches addressed are standardized norm-referenced assessment and grammatical feature coding from story retell narratives. The authors review the utility of these approaches for evaluating the English grammatical development of Spanish-speaking ELs. A research example is provided to illustrate how a small sample (n=18) of ELs performed on each of these English-based tasks. Findings reveal that children tended to demonstrate higher percent accuracies on the grammatical forms targeted within the narrative context compared to the norm-referenced contexts. These results, coupled with the background literature, indicate that the two approaches yield different information for individual children. Norm-referenced assessment allows SLPs to target specific grammatical structures and to obtain measures of children's mastery of those structures, whereas narrative-based assessment provides a naturalist measure of functional grammar use. Recommendations for practice are provided.
Wood, C., Bustamante, K., Fitton, L. M., Brown, D., & Petscher, Y. (2017). Rapid automated naming performance of young Spanish-English speaking children. Languages, 2(3). 1-17. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages2030013
Wood, C, McIlraith, A. L., & Fitton, L. (2016). State of practice for language and literacy research: A review of methods in ten relevant journals. Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders, 43, 195-207. https://doi.org/10.1044/cicsd_43_F_306
Fitton, L., Rutas, K., Wofford, M. C., Brown, D., Gabas, C., Hoge, R., & Wood, C (2016). Intensifying English vocabulary instruction for English language learners. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 1(16), 4-14. https://doi.org/10.1044/persp1.SIG16.4
View the final, accepted version of the manuscript here.
Abstract: English vocabulary development is a key component of language and literacy development for English language learners (ELLs) living in the United States. With the increase in the number of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) with ELLs on their caseloads, it has become increasingly important for SLPs to be able to facilitate vocabulary growth in ELLs. To assist SLPs working with ELLs in schools, the present paper provides an overview of strategies to enhance English vocabulary instruction for ELLs, drawing on evidence from research with both monolingual and bilingual students. Strategies included are: leveraging the native language, teaching comprehension monitoring, embedding instruction in reading, building morphological awareness, and collaborating with classroom teachers. Specific, effective vocabulary instruction protocols are also briefly overviewed.
Selected Presentations & Resources
Fitton, L., & Goodrich, J. M. (2021, July). Predicting risk for reading difficulty among young dual language learners: Combining Spanish and English. Virtual poster presentation at the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference. (International)
McIlraith, A., Fitton, L., Hooker, J., Brown, J., & Hogan, T. (2017, November). A practical guide to research design. Poster presentation at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. Los Angeles, CA. (National)