The San Diego State University Bilingual Development in Context research lab has created and validated a set of assessment tools for the Vietnamese language. Though these tools have not yet been standardized, they have been used in research studies with Vietnamese-speaking children, monolingual or bilingual, within the age range of 3 to 10 years.
About the tools
Information and research basis of the assessment tools
Who can administer these tools?
These tools are meant to be administered by Vietnamese-speaking speech-language pathologists or related professionals. They can also be used by speech-language pathologists who are working with a Vietnamese interpreter or paraprofessional.
How to access these tools?
Please complete the registration form to request access to the assessment tools. Requests will be reviewed and approved on an individual basis. Approved accounts are valid for one year and can be renewed on a yearly basis. Approved users must NOT share the account with others.
Do these tools cost money?
These tools are meant to be freely used to improve language assessment for Vietnamese children. They are NOT meant to be sold or used for commercial purposes.
Any suggestions on how to administer?
Each of the child tasks has short training videos in Vietnamese that describe how to administer and score. There is also a video in English that provides an overview of considerations when working with a Vietnamese interpreter.
For some of the tasks (sentence repetition, nonword repetition), it might be helpful to audio record the child’s responses in order to re-listen and check your scoring later.
For the timed tasks (rapid naming, word, and nonword reading), you will need a timer with a second hand to administer.
Here is a short tutorial on how to use these tools as a bilingual SLP:
Summary of Assessment Tools
| Name | What the Tool Measures | Source |
| Parent Survey | Background information, Vietnamese language use/experience, and developmental concerns | Pham, G., & Tipton, T. (2018). Internal and external factors that support children's minority first language and English. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49, 595-606. |
| Picture Identification | Receptive vocabulary skills | Pham, G., Pruitt-Lord, S., Snow, C.E., Nguyen, H.T.Y., Phạm, B., Dao, T.B.T., Tran, N.B.T., Pham, L.T., Hoang, H.T., & Dam, Q.D. (2019). Identifying developmental language disorder in Vietnamese children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62, 1452-1467. |
| Picture Naming | Expressive vocabulary skills | |
| Sentence Repetition | Grammatical knowledge | Pham, G. & Ebert, K. (2020). Diagnostic accuracy of sentence repetition and nonword repetition for Developmental Language Disorder in Vietnamese. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63, 1521–1536. |
| Nonword Repetition | Short-term phonological processing | |
| Rapid Naming | Processing speed of naming familiar objects and digits | Pham, G., & Snow, C.E. (2020). Beginning to Read in Vietnamese: Kindergarten Precursors to First Grade Fluency and Reading Comprehension. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. |
| Phonological Awareness | Ability to blend and segment speech-sounds and syllables and to detect rimes and tones | |
| Word and Nonword Reading | Reading fluency at the word level |