CALT Formal and Informal Assessment for Dyslexia 5

Question 1

A CALT wants to assess a bilingual student's phonological awareness in English while accounting for language background.
Which consideration is MOST important when selecting and interpreting assessment tools?

Accepted Answer

Select measures normed on or validated with bilingual populations and interpret scores with awareness of cross-linguistic transfer

Answer

Administer all tests in Spanish only to reduce English interference

Answer

Use normed assessments validated on monolingual English speakers without modification

Answer

Exclude phonological awareness testing entirely if the student is an English language learner

Question 2

What is the PRIMARY distinction between a screener and a comprehensive diagnostic battery in dyslexia assessment?

Accepted Answer

Screeners identify students who need further evaluation; comprehensive batteries provide detailed profiles of strengths and weaknesses

Answer

Screeners are more accurate than comprehensive batteries for diagnosis

Answer

Comprehensive batteries can be completed in under 20 minutes; screeners take longer

Answer

Screeners are used only with adults; comprehensive batteries are for children

Question 3

A student earns a standard score of 85 on a single measure of phonological awareness but shows multiple other risk indicators for dyslexia. A CALT should:

Accepted Answer

Consider the score within the full profile of multiple data sources before drawing conclusions

Answer

Rule out dyslexia because the phonological score is within one standard deviation of the mean

Answer

Rely solely on that score without additional data

Answer

Immediately diagnose dyslexia based on the risk indicators alone

Question 4

Which of the following informal assessment approaches provides the MOST direct information about a student's knowledge of syllable types during reading?

Accepted Answer

Conducting a structured oral reading analysis using words representing each syllable type

Answer

Administering a rapid automatized naming task

Answer

Analyzing errors on a listening comprehension passage

Answer

Administering a standardized vocabulary test

Question 5

A CALT reviews a student's writing sample and notes frequent omission of inflectional endings (e.g., writing 'walk' for 'walked,' 'run' for 'runs'). This pattern is MOST consistent with a deficit in:

Accepted Answer

Morphological awareness and orthographic representation of morphemes

Answer

Basic letter formation and handwriting fluency

Answer

Phonological awareness at the phoneme level

Answer

Visual-spatial processing of letter orientation

Question 6

When a CALT compares a student's word identification standard score to the student's word attack standard score, what specific diagnostic information does this comparison provide?

Accepted Answer

It shows whether the student's sight-word recognition is stronger or weaker than phonemic decoding of unfamiliar words

Answer

It reveals the student's reading comprehension relative to listening comprehension

Answer

It measures rapid automatized naming speed versus phonological memory

Answer

It compares the student's oral reading fluency to silent reading rate

Question 7

A CALT notices that a student's reading accuracy is at the 20th percentile but reading rate is at the 5th percentile. The student reads haltingly with long pauses even on familiar words. This profile MOST strongly suggests a problem with:

Accepted Answer

Automaticity and fluency rather than accuracy alone

Answer

Reading comprehension at the discourse level

Answer

Phoneme segmentation at the pre-alphabetic stage

Answer

Auditory processing of environmental sounds