Validity of a nonspeech dynamic assessment of the alphabetic principle in preschool and school-aged children

Abstract

Learning to read and spell is an important but difficult achievement for children who have complex communication needs. Given that assessment is a vital part of any intervention program, one major barrier is the lack of reliable and valid assessments for this population. This study evaluated the reliability and validity of Dynamic Assessment of the Alphabetic Principle (DAAP), which does not require spoken responses. For this study, 27 preschool and school-aged children with typical development completed the DAAP and other standard measures of phonemic awareness and early literacy. Results indicated the DAAP had high internal consistency and strong correlations among its subtests, indicating high reliability. Moreover, performance on the DAAP had high correlations with standard measures of phonemic awareness and early literacy, providing evidence of its validity. Consequently, the DAAP represents one approach to fill the important need for assessments of early literacy that do not require speech responses.

Keywords:

• Alphabetic principle
• complex communication needs
• dynamic assessment
• literacy
• phonemic awareness
• significant speech impairment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Dell© tablet computer is a product of the Dell Inc., Round Rock, TX, www.dell.com.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by funds awarded by the University of South Florida to the first author. Assessment development was supported by NIH [R01 HD048528] awarded to the second author at the University of Kansas.