Ryan P. Bowles
Ryan P. Bowles is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University and co-director (with Lori E. Skibbe and Hope K. Gerde) of the Early Language and Literacy Investigations(ELLI) lab. He is an applied quantitative psychologist focused on assessment of early childhood (preschool and early elementary) literacy skills using contemporary statistical approaches to measurement and longitudinal methods.Dr. Bowles is PI of the Narrative Assessment Protocol (NAP) project, a four-year IES funded project to develop an assessment of children’s narrative skills- the ability to tell a story- that does not require transcribing.
Ongoing Projects:

  • Letter name knowledge and the development of reading skills.
  • Development and validation of the Narrative Assessment Protocol
  • Development and validation of the Inventory of Phonological Assessment with Alternative Responses
References: 

  • Skibbe, L. E., Grimm, K. J., Bowles, R. P., & Morrison, F. J. (in press). Literacy growth in the academic year versus summer from Preschool through Second Grade: Differential effects of schooling across four skills. Scientific Studies of Reading.
  • Hogan, T.P., Bowles, R., Catts, H.W., & Storkel, H.L. (2011). Lexical influences on phoneme awareness. Journal of Communication Disorders, 44, 49-58.
  • Pence Turnbull, K. L., Bowles, R. P., Skibbe, L. E., Justice, L. M., & Wiggins, A. K. (2010). Theoretical explanations for preschoolers’ lowercase alphabet knowledge. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 1757-1768.
  • Skibbe, L. E., Justice, L. M., & Bowles, R. P. (2010). Maternal use of instructional supports during phonological awareness intervention for children with specific language impairment. International Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 13, 1-15.
  • Justice, L. M., Bowles, R. P., Pence Turnbull, K. L., & Gosse, C. S. (2010). A scalable tool for assessing the spoken narratives of preschool children: The NAP (Narrative Assessment Protocol). Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 25, 218-234.
  • Bowles, R. P. (2010). Measuring intraindividual variability with intratask change item response models. In S. M. Chow, E. Ferrer, & F. Hsieh (Eds.), Statistical methods for modeling human dynamics: An interdisciplinary dialogue. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • McArdle, J. J., Grimm, K. J., Hamagami, F., Bowles, R. P., & Meredith, W. (2009). Modeling life-span growth curves of cognition using longitudinal data with multiple samples and changing scales of measurement. Psychological Methods, 14, 126-149.
  • Justice, L.M., Bowles, R. P., Pence Turnbull, K. L., & Skibbe, L. E. (2009). School readiness among children with varying histories of language difficulties. Developmental Psychology, 45, 460-476.
  • Pence, K. L., Beckman, A. R., Justice, L. M., & Bowles, R. P. (2009). Preschoolers’ exposure to language stimulation in classrooms serving at-risk children: The contribution of group size and activity context. Early Education and Development, 20, 53-79.
  • Bowles, R. P., & Salthouse, T. A. (2008). Vocabulary test format and differential relations to age. Psychology and Aging, 23, 366-376.
  • Massey, S., Pence, K. L., Justice, L. M., & Bowles, R. P. (2008). Educators’ use of cognitive challenging questions in economically disadvantaged preschool classroom contexts. Early Education and Development, 19, 340-360.
  • Skibbe, L. E., Grimm, K. J., Stanton-Chapman, T., Justice, L. M., Pence, K. L., & Bowles, R. P. (2008). Reading trajectories of children with language difficulties from preschool through grade five. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 39, 475-486.
  • Justice, L. M., Bowles, R. P., Kaderavek, J. N., Ukrainetz, T. A., Eisenberg, S. L., & Gillam, R. B. (2006). The Index of Narrative Micro-Structure (INMIS): A clinical tool for analyzing school-aged children’s narrative performance. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 15, 177-189.
  • Justice, L. M., Bowles, R. P., & Skibbe, L. E. (2006). Measuring preschool attainment of print-concept knowledge: A study of typical and at-risk 3- to 5-year-old children using item response theory. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 37, 224-235.
  • Justice, L. M., Pence, K. L., Bowles, R. P., & Wiggins, A. (2006). An investigation of four hypotheses concerning the order by which children learn the letters of the alphabet. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21, 374-389.
  • Kline, T. L., Schmidt, K. M., & Bowles, R. P. (2006). Using LinLog and FACETS to model item components in the LLTM. Journal of Applied Measurement, 7, 74-91.
  • Bowles, R. P., Grimm, K. J., & McArdle, J. J. (2005). A structural factor analysis of vocabulary knowledge and relations to age. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 60, P234-P241.
  • Justice, L. M., Kaderavek, J., Bowles, R. P., & Grimm, K. J. (2005). Language impairment, parent-child shared reading, and phonological awareness: A feasibility study. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 25, 143-156.
  • Ram, N., Chow, S.-M., Bowles, R. P., Wang, L., Grimm, K. J., Fujita, F., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2005). Examining interindividual differences in cyclicity of pleasant and unpleasant affect using spectral analysis and item response modeling. Psychometrika, 70, 773-790.
  • Bowles, R. P. (2004). The effect of dropping low scores on ability estimates. Journal of Applied Measurement, 5, 178-188.
  • Bowles, R. P., & Salthouse, T. A. (2003). Assessing the age-related effects of proactive interference on working memory using the Rasch model. Psychology and Aging, 18, 608-615.