Fuchs, D., Featherstone, N., Garwick, D. R., & Fuchs, L. S. (1984). Effects of examiner familiarity and task characteristics on speech-and-language-impaired children’s test performance . Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance , 16 (4), 198–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00256307.1984.12022357

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Students took tests given by both familiar and unfamiliar examiners. All examiners were female, certified, and had several years of experience.

Participants included 79 (55 males, 24 females) preschoolers with speech and/or language impairments (average age was 62.35 months). All participants had been enrolled in one of three special education programs for at least 6 weeks prior to the study. Their performance on standardized language and/or articulation measures ranged from 1.5 to 3 standard deviations below the mean, although they were of at least average intelligence. A total of 68 children were White, and 5, 4, and 2 were Native American, Black, and Asian American, respectively.

The Symbolic Mediation Test (SMT), a test incorporating three levels of complexity of symbolic mediation (low, medium, and high), was administered. At each level of complexity, three items required a verbal response and three items required a gesture response. One point was given for each correct response with 18 as the maximum number of points awarded for the total score.

Participants performed significantly better on the SMT when tested by familiar examiners. Their differential functioning did not depend on the task's level of complexity.