Do Some School-Age Children Have No Language? Some Problems of Construct Validity in the Pre-LAS Español

This article reports the existence of a large group of students identified as “non-nons,” Spanish-background school-age children living in the United States who are reported to be non-verbal in both English and Spanish, and brings the validity of the “non-non” construct into question. In particular, the authors assess the validity of the Pre- Language Assessment Scales Español (Pre-LAS Español), an oral language assessment that purports to measure oral native language ability in children ages 4 to 6. A dataset of 38,887 students who took the Pre-LAS Español in a large urban school district in 1997 is examined, and questions are raised from internal and external evidence regarding the test’s validity. The authors conclude that there are serious concerns regarding the validity of the test, characterize the “non-non” label as an artifact of poor assessment, and recommend that districts and states reconsider current policy requiring or recommending routine oral native language assessment of language minority students.