The Structure of Language Abilities and Language Disabilities

The Structure of Language Abilities and Language Disabilities

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The Structure of Language Abilities and Language Disabilities

MATAL is a computer-based test battery for the diagnosis of learning disabilities (LD) in applicants to higher education institutions and in currently enrolled students.  ,MATAL was developed by NITE in cooperation with the Council of Higher Education in Israel (CHE), as part of an endeavor to develop policy and procedure for standardizing and regulating the diagnosis of LD in higher education and thus facilitating the provision of test accommodations.  ,The MATAL Assessment Tools include: 20 tests (54 performance measures) which assess the following skills: reading, writing, numeracy, attention, memory and visual perception.  ,Of the 20 tests, 11 are used to diagnose language deficiencies, mostly those pertaining to reading and writing. ,Since 2007, over 8,000 persons have been diagnosed as LD by means of MATAL.  ,The data yielded constitute a unique opportunity to examine the relationships between basic and higher language skills and to uncover the structure of both academic language skills and basic cognitive language skills.To achieve this goal, a factor analysis was applied to performance scores of 2,652 persons who applied for LD diagnosed by the means of MATAL test-battery. The factor analysis was applied once to all 54 performance measures and again to 31 performance measures of 11 language tests. The factors obtained in both analyses were interpreted according to the variables loaded on them. The correlation between the factors and their correlations with a general verbal ability score were also examined.

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