VCLA-Phrases − Assessment of Higher Language Competencies. A language test for secondary school
Itala Riccardi Ripamonti, Barbara Cividati, Valentina Russo, Alberto Zerbini, Katia Federico
The number of students (in their last years of primary/early secondary school) reporting to the clinic for learning disabilities is constantly increasing. Specifically, students manifest difficulties in speaking about/understanding a text, which become evident only with the increase of requests by the school. This was what induced the AA to draw up and standardise a test, which could identify limitations in language skills, which in turn can be reasonably attributed to an innate predisposition towards languages (linguistic sensitivity). The test was administered to 313 students of primary school (from years 3 to 5) and secondary school (years 1 and 2) and then to a population of students with SLD (131) belonging to the same school year. The results showed that the performance of the SLD group was considerably lower than that of the control group. The difficulties that came out are concentrated in specific areas (pronouns, adversative conjunctions, prepositions, verb forms); all very useful information to start targeted treatment.
Keywords
SLI (Specific Language Impairment), SLD (Specific Learning Disorder), higher language competencies.