Lesa Hoffman, professor in Educational Measurement and Statistics, is part of a $1.3 million grant from the Institute of Education Science to help better assess the pre-reading abilities of  students with speech impairments and intellectual disabilities.

Validity of a Nonspeech, Dynamic Assessment of the Alphabetic Principle (DAAP) was awarded to the University of Kansas and will extend over four years. Hoffman will serve as a co-principal investigator with University of Kansas Professor Kathryn Saunders. Hoffman will work to design and implement all statistical analyses for the project.

The goal of the project is to continue to develop an instrument with which to measure pre-reading abilities—the dynamic assessment of the alphabetic principle (DAAP). The alphabetic principle is the relationship between written letters, symbols, and spoken words.

Hoffman says the project will be impactful in three ways. It will improve upon related measures that show floor effects in measuring younger children and children with disabilities. It does not require spoken responses, which makes it accessible and useful for all populations, including children with speech impairments. The DAAP measure is computerized and thus easier to administer than current measures that require highly-trained test administrators and lengthy individual assessment sessions.