Abstract
The assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) children’s language abilities is an area that requires greater consideration and development in the field of speech and language pathology. CLD students are often misrepresented as having a language disorder based on their standardized assessment performance. Instead, language difficulties in the classroom may reflect differences in language experience and not impairment in underlying linguistic ability. Dynamic assessment, which integrates teaching into the testing procedure, has been proposed as a less culturally and linguistically biased form of assessment. This study used a mixed-method systematic review to examine dynamic assessment methodology and the role of learner responsiveness for evaluating diverse learners’ language skills. Following the PRISMA framework, ten studies were identified which met the inclusion criteria through keyword searches on ERIC, PsycInfo, and PubMed. The final articles were assessed using the QualSyst appraisal checklist. The results supported the integration of teaching into the assessment procedure through a test-teach-retest approach. Two main variations were present in the current research: the graduated prompting approach and the mediated learning experience approach. Findings supported the significance of children’s responsiveness to teaching as an important indicator for identifying CLD children with and without language impairment, although in-depth information regarding how mediators elicited this responsiveness was largely missing. Further qualitative research in the form of case studies and longitudinal research were recommended. The results of this review can contribute to the development of new methods of language assessment to better represent diverse populations.