CAN I USE DIBELS WITH CHILDREN WHO HAVE SPEECH OR LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENTS THAT DELAY ORAL RESPONSES? FOR EXAMPLE, CAN I USE DIBELS WITH A CHILD WHO STUTTERS?
(From Linda Farrell) DIBELS can be used to measure a child’s accuracy for a child with this type language impairment. However, because the child’s language impairment is likely to affect his fluency, the established risk categories would not be valid for this student. If a child who has this type of language impairment has DIBELS scores below Target or Benchmark Scores, consult with a speech and language expert to determine other means to identify the child’s stage of reading development.
