WIAT Oral Language & Listening Comprehension 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which of the following tasks would BEST differentiate between a receptive language deficit and an expressive language deficit?
- Asking a student to read a passage aloud
- Comparing performance on a word-pointing task versus a word-naming task (Correct answer)
- Asking a student to spell dictated words
- Measuring a student's oral reading fluency rate
Correct answer: Comparing performance on a word-pointing task versus a word-naming task
A pointing task isolates receptive ability while a naming task isolates expressive ability, allowing direct comparison of the two domains.
Question 2: A student hears an oral passage and later accurately summarizes it in their own words. This performance primarily demonstrates:
- Decoding and word recognition
- Listening comprehension and oral paraphrase ability (Correct answer)
- Written expression skills
- Phonological short-term memory only
Correct answer: Listening comprehension and oral paraphrase ability
Paraphrasing a heard passage in one's own words shows both comprehension of the meaning and the ability to re-express it orally.
Question 3: When a student uses context clues within a spoken sentence to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word, they are demonstrating:
- Phonological recoding
- Contextual vocabulary inference from oral input (Correct answer)
- Morphological decomposition
- Verbal working memory span
Correct answer: Contextual vocabulary inference from oral input
Using surrounding spoken context to infer an unknown word's meaning is a key oral language and listening comprehension strategy.
Question 4: On the WIAT, the Oral Language composite typically includes subtests assessing both expressive and receptive language in order to:
- Measure only phonological processing skills
- Capture the full range of spoken language ability including production and comprehension (Correct answer)
- Replace the need for a separate reading assessment
- Assess written language skills in a different format
Correct answer: Capture the full range of spoken language ability including production and comprehension
Including both expressive and receptive subtests gives a comprehensive picture of a student's oral language functioning across input and output dimensions.
Question 5: A student consistently struggles to follow multi-step oral directions but performs well on single-step directions. This pattern MOST suggests difficulty with:
- Phonemic awareness
- Auditory working memory and sequential processing (Correct answer)
- Expressive vocabulary
- Reading comprehension
Correct answer: Auditory working memory and sequential processing
Following multi-step directions requires holding multiple pieces of information in working memory and executing them in sequence.
Question 6: A child hears: 'Break a leg at your recital tonight!' and responds, 'I don't want to break my leg!' This misunderstanding demonstrates difficulty with:
- Literal comprehension of explicit statements
- Interpreting idiomatic and figurative expressions (Correct answer)
- Phonological decoding of unfamiliar words
- Syntactic parsing of complex sentences
Correct answer: Interpreting idiomatic and figurative expressions
'Break a leg' is an idiom meaning 'good luck,' and taking it literally reflects a deficit in understanding non-literal language.
Question 7: Which of the following scenarios BEST illustrates a strength in oral language skills despite weaknesses in reading?
- A student who reads fluently but cannot retell a story
- A student who struggles to decode print but can accurately answer comprehension questions after listening to a passage (Correct answer)
- A student who excels at spelling but cannot follow oral directions
- A student who reads slowly but writes detailed essays
Correct answer: A student who struggles to decode print but can accurately answer comprehension questions after listening to a passage
Strong listening comprehension despite poor decoding suggests intact oral language with a specific reading/decoding deficit.
WIAT Oral Language & Listening Comprehension 5
Which of the following tasks would BEST differentiate between a receptive language deficit and an expressive language deficit?