Umeå universitets logga

One area of concern within a bilingual context relates to the appropriate‘diagnostic’ assessment of bilingual children’s language abilities and to thesuitable application of their assessment results in practice. Communicationand language difficulties are numerous and complex, and manifest themselvesin a variety of ways that are captured to different degrees via standardisedtests. Such tools are readily available – often in multiple forms – in somelanguages, such as English, but less readily available in others. This is particu-larly the case for minority languages such as Welsh, and this poses greatdifficulty when aiming for a certain type of assessment of specific languageabilities. This paper outlines the current state of diagnostic assessment toolsfor Welsh, with a specific focus on measures of literacy abilities. Drawing onresearch evidence from the Welsh context, we argue for appropriate trainingof educators in this area, and for the urgent need to develop tools that are bothlanguage and context specific, with relevant bilingual speaker norms, thathave practical applications in the classroom, to ensure equitable and relevantdiagnosis and support for all children educated in Wales.