Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare child language assessment practices of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in school and non-school settings to determine if their place of employment impacts the diagnostic decision-making process. Method: School-based SLPs (e.g., direct service providers employed in preschool and/or K-12…

The present study aimed to examine the effect of activity engagement, age, language proficiency, and time elapse on children's response accuracy to adult's questions. A total of 70, 3- to 6-year-old children participated in the study, engaging in a story-telling activity, a proficiency test, and two interviews. Additionally, 57 of these children…

In an upcoming coverage-comprehension study, we plan to assess learners' meaning-recall knowledge of words as they occur in the study's reading passage. As several meaning-recall test formats exist, the purpose of this small-scale study (N = 10) was to determine which of three formats was most similar to a criterion interview regarding mean score…

Recent empirical research in sociolinguistics and social psychology has established the existence of the socio-psychological phenomena known as linguistic stereotyping (LS) and reverse linguistic stereotyping (RLS), which have an implicit or unconscious effect on listeners' perception of speech and speakers. Despite such findings, little research…

Jessica Wu is Research and Development Program Director at the Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC) in Taipei, Taiwan. Jessica has been deeply involved in the development and validation of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) in addition to a number of other foreign language testing programs. Her research focuses on speaking…

Language is inherently variable, and learner language is particularly variable. The variationist paradigm considers learner language a heterogeneously variable yet inherently rule-governed system. Specifically, learners' alternation between native-like and nonnative-like variants of a variable or invariable target native speaker (NS) form…

Research examining test taker fluency in simulated and face-to-face oral proficiency interview performances has primarily focused on quantitative spoken utterance fluency data alone, with further qualitative investigation of test taker processing fluency's effect being neglected. This study compared four test takers' spoken utterance and…