The Assessment of Written Phrasal Constructs and Grammar of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students with Varying Expressive Language Abilities
Table 2
Assessment measures, definitions, and examples.
Assessment measure
Definition
Example
T-unit
An independent clause and all subordinate clauses
The boy is running
WER I
Perfect T-unit: no grammatical errors
The boy is running
WER II
Flawed T-unit: contains all the main critical structures but has one or more surface errors (e.g., tense errors, subject-verb agreement, article error, plurality errors, and incorrect prepositions)
The boy is run
WER III
Perfect word string: 3+ consecutive words within a T-unit not deemed perfect or flawed
The boy is running an girl (4-word perfect word string)
Phrasal error (PE)
Confused statements that were unintelligible in English or ASL
Cat you ah is so is pay so is you is you yes is pay yes
Total # of words
All words in the writing sample
The boy is running to the store (7 words)
Total # of unique words
All unduplicated words in a writing sample (includes base, derived, and inflected words)