Measurement of Modifiability in Children From Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds

Modifiability is a central concept in the area of dynamic assessment. Yet, there has been little attempt to capture the essence of modifiability, either qualitatively or quantitatively. The two studies reported here used a scaling approach to measure components of modifiability. The results indicate that modifiability (here defined as a combination of planning, attention to task/discrimination, motivation, transfer, responsivity, and examiner effort) differentiates between children having low language ability and typically developing children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, the individual components of modifiability, with the exception of motivation, significantly differentiated the two groups. These findings suggest that modifiability is a useful construct in providing a less biased assessment and that the descriptive results obtained from this observation can also be used to link assessment with intervention.