When a child is referred for a speech-language evaluation, the goal is to understand how that child communicates and learns. A culturally responsive assessment considers the child's languages, dialects, family knowledge, experiences, and opportunities to learn. Dynamic assessment adds a useful question: What happens when we teach the child a new skill and see how they respond? [1, 2]
Why does context matter?
A child's answer can reflect what they know, the language used in the task, how familiar the topic is, or whether the testing format makes sense to them. An English test score alone may give an incomplete or misleading picture when its comparison group does not represent the child. ASHA advises clinicians to consider language and dialect before selecting a test and to avoid reporting standard scores when the norms are inappropriate or a standardized test has simply been translated. [1, 3]
A fuller evaluation may combine family and teacher interviews, language history, observation, play or classroom participation, language samples, appropriate formal measures, and input from a trained interpreter when needed. The clinician looks for patterns across these sources rather than treating one score as the answer. [1, 3, 4]
What is dynamic assessment?
Dynamic assessment is an interactive way to examine learning potential. One common approach is test–teach–retest: [2, 3]
| Step | What the clinician might do | What we learn |
|---|---|---|
| Test | Ask the child to tell a story from pictures and note what the child does independently. | The child's starting point on this task. |
| Teach | Model a story structure, explain a strategy, practice together, and give feedback. | Which kinds and amounts of support help the child learn. |
| Retest | Invite the child to tell a new story or try the skill again. | Whether the child applies or transfers what was taught. |
The clinician also watches how learning happens: how much support is needed, whether the child responds to feedback, and whether a new strategy carries over. ASHA calls this responsiveness modifiability. A child who changes quickly after suitable teaching may have had limited prior opportunity to learn the skill; a child who continues to struggle may need further evaluation or support. Neither response, by itself, establishes a diagnosis. [2, 5]
What does the research say?
A meta-analysis of seven studies found suggestive evidence that dynamic assessment can help identify language disorders in bilingual children, while warning that limitations in study quality may have inflated estimates of diagnostic accuracy. [6] LEADERSproject, a resource associated with Teachers College, Columbia University, summarizes a study of narrative dynamic assessment with 42 Spanish-English bilingual children. Its review highlights the value of observing learning during a brief teaching task and cautions against using that task as the only measure because the sample was small. [7, 8]
Dynamic assessment is therefore one part of a well-rounded evaluation, not a universal test or a shortcut around understanding a child's language background. [3, 6, 7]
Questions families and educators can ask
- “How did the evaluation include the languages and dialects my child uses?”
- “What did you learn from our family's observations and the child's everyday communication?”
- “Did you give my child a chance to learn the skill during the evaluation?”
- “How much help was needed, and what changed after teaching?”
- “Were the test's comparison group and scores appropriate for my child?”
LEADERSproject offers examples and training materials, including School-Age Language Assessment Measures (SLAM), that can help clinicians elicit and analyze language samples. Such materials are tools for gathering information; they do not replace clinical judgment or an individualized evaluation. [7, 9]
Our approach at Culturally Speaking SLPs
We start with the whole child: their languages, relationships, strengths, and learning experiences. Watching what a child can do with support helps us make more thoughtful decisions about what comes next.
This article offers general information. A qualified clinician must interpret assessment findings for an individual child.
References and further reading
1. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). (n.d.). Cultural responsiveness. Practice Portal.
2. ASHA. (n.d.). Dynamic assessment: Module 1, What is dynamic assessment?.
3. ASHA. (n.d.). Assessment tools, techniques, and data sources. Practice Portal.
4. ASHA. (n.d.). Multilingual service delivery in audiology and speech-language pathology. Practice Portal.
5. ASHA. (n.d.). Dynamic assessment: Module 3, Observing modifiability during dynamic assessment.
6. Orellana, C. I., Wada, R., & Gillam, R. B. (2019). The use of dynamic assessment for the diagnosis of language disorders in bilingual children: A meta-analysis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 28(3), 1298–1317.
7. LEADERSproject. (n.d.). Review of Petersen and colleagues' study of dynamic assessment of narratives.
8. Bilingual Extension Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. LEADERSproject.
9. LEADERSproject. (n.d.). SLAM guidelines for analysis.