Categorical Latent Interactions of Multinomial Linguistic Components

Abstract

This study investigated latent coherence and discrepancy between listening and reading comprehensions. A total of 460 Taiwanese children in the first or second grade participated in this study. Each child was assessed by test materials that contained both spoken and written Chinese tests. Specifically, multiple categorical latent variables (MCLV) models were proposed to assess latent coherence and discrepancy between Mandarin listening and Chinese reading comprehensions. Although notable coherent relations between the two abilities were found, results of this study also indicated that the discrepancy between them should not be ignored. It was concluded that coherence and discrepancy between Mandarin listening skills and Chinese reading performance were quantitatively assessable by the proposed methods. In addition, the discrepancy between the two abilities could be used to assess reading disabilities. Empirical demonstration showed the assessment of Chinese reading disabilities was practically feasible.