Assessment Of Language Abilities Research Articles

"HEGA": the Basque version of the PaBiQ parental questionnaire, for clinicians and educators working in the Basque multilingual environment.

In this paper, we investigate the relevance of using a parental questionnaire (HEGA) to gather information on children's language experience in Basque and early language development in order to better interpret language performance in that language. Both this questionnaire and use of language assessment in Basque are needed in the Basque Country, where multilingualism is well attested. The questionnaire was developed after the PaBiQ with additional questions meant to reflect the Basque context, notably its schooling linguistic model. The HEGA was administered to the parents of 186 bilingual children of the Northern Basque Country (age 4;2-9;1) whose language skills in Basque were assessed via a new test battery targeting different linguistic domains (HIGA). Several significant correlations were found between exposure to, and use of Basque and performance in lexical and morphosyntactic production and comprehension. Mixed-effect regression analyses revealed that language experience in Basque, and particularly the fact of being schooled entirely in Basque, were strong predictors of lexical and morphosyntactic outcomes. In contrast, phonological performance, as measured by nonword repetition, appeared to be less impacted by language experience in Basque. Finally, two children were identified as being at risk of language impairment, due to low language performance in Basque despite extended language experience. These results have important implications for clinicians and educators, in particular for detecting language difficulties in Basque-speaking bilingual children. They also show the need for assessing language abilities in Basque for children growing up in a solid Basque-speaking environment.

Turkish adaptation, reliability, and validity of the detection test for language impairments in adults and the aged

There is no quick, valid, and reliable screening tool in Turkish that can be used for screening language disorders associated with major neurocognitive disorders (MND). To fill this gap, we designed three distinct studies. In the first study, we adapted the Detection Test for Language Impairments in Adults and the Aged into the Turkish language (DTLA-Tr). In the second study, we collected data from 175 Turkish individuals to determine the normative data of the DTLA-Tr. In the last study, we investigated the psychometric properties of the DLTA-Tr by comparing 17 healthy individuals with 17 patients with Alzheimer’s disease and determining its test–retest reliability. As a result of Study 1, the DTLA was adapted to the Turkish adult population. In Study 2, the normative data of the DTLA-Tr were provided. The results of this study indicated a positive correlation between educational level and DTLA-Tr total score. The results of Study 3 showed that the DTLA-Tr has high predictive validity and good test–retest reliability. The DTLA-Tr is a valid and reliable tool for assessing language abilities in both adults and the elderly. The findings of this study have significant implications for the evaluation of language in Turkish-speaking patients with MND.

Studies assessing domains pertaining to structural language in autism vary in reporting practices and approaches to assessment: A systematic review.

Under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.), language impairment can co-occur with autism. It is not yet clear how research defines, reports, and characterizes structural language abilities of autistic individuals eligible for school-based special education services (aged 3-21 years) in the United States. In the United States, students typically must be formally diagnosed to be eligible for services and supports. However, the quality of diagnosis is only as good as the research evidence on which diagnosis depends. To evaluate evidence quality, we examined how studies of school-aged autistic individuals report assessments of language ability. This systematic review included 57 studies using English language age-referenced assessments used to measure structural language. Findings showed many differences across studies in how language abilities were measured and reported. Also, none of the studies fully reported the variables relevant to characterizing language impairment. Outcomes were similar across versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Findings indicate that researchers and clinicians should pay attention to reporting diagnostic and grouping criteria. Carefully interpreting research evidence is critical for ensuring that diagnostic criteria and supports are representative of and accessible to autistic individuals and relevant parties.

Assessing Language Ability of Adolescent Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The main characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) lay on the ability to communicate and interact with others. Meanwhile, communication and interaction are highly related to the ability to understand language and ability to convey information. This qualitative study was conducted to identify the language ability of adolescent students with ASD receptively and expressively. Data were collected at seven junior and senior special high schools through assessments using the instruments of Deteksi Dini Gangguan Kemampuan Berbahasa (DDGKB) and Pemahaman Bahasa Secara Auditori (PBSA). 45 students consisting of 37 boys and 8 girls with their age ranging from 11 to 19 years old were assessed using the instruments. The collected data were then analysed by comparing the data to the language development milestones and indicators of receptive and expressive ability from the Education Ministry. Results show the number of male autistic students is greater than the number of female students. Around 13% or 6 out of 45 teenage autistic students already have receptive and expressive language skills over the mental age of 5 years. Meanwhile, 5. 87% or 39 students still have receptive and expressive abilities under the mental age of 5 years.

Comparing narrative storytelling ability in individuals with autism and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

Narrative discourse, or storytelling, is used in daily conversation and requires higher-level language and social communication skills that are not always captured by standardised assessments of language. Many autistic individuals and individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have difficulties with both social communication and language skills, and narrative discourse analysis offers an ecologically relevant approach to assessing those challenges. This study investigated narrative discourse in individuals with autism and FASD, as well as an age- and sex-matched comparison group. Narratives from 45 adolescents and adults, 11 with autism, 11 with FASD and 23 age- and sex-matched comparison participants were elicited using a wordless storybook. They were then transcribed orthographically, formatted to the Systematic Analyses of Language Transcript (SALT) convention and scored based on the SALT Narrative Scoring Scheme (NSS), a standardised language analysis protocol. In addition to the NSS total score, which assesses the overall structure and cohesion of the narratives produced, local and global measures of language ability were also employed. The local language measures included the number of mental state and temporal relation terms produced, while the global language measures included mean length of utterance, total different words, total words, total utterances, rate of speech, the number of mazes (e.g., repetitions, 'um', 'uh' or self-corrections) per total word and the NSS total score. Using the SALT Language Sample Analysis tool, our results revealed that on global language measures, group differences were found on rate of speech, number of mazes per total words and the description of conflict/resolution in the narratives produced. The autism group produced significantly more mazes per total word and scored higher on the NSS conflict/resolution category score compared to the FASD and comparison groups. Both the autism and FASD groups spoke at a lower rate than the comparison group. On local language measures of narrative production, all groups were comparable, on average. While many aspects of narrative discourse in the autism and FASD groups were similar to each other and to the comparison group, we observed group differences on global measures of narrative production and significant individual variability within groups, suggesting that narrative abilities considered at an individual level may provide important clinical information for intervention planning. Future research should also consider additional variables that influence narrative discourse, such as motivation, distractibility or decision-making of individual participants. What is already known on the subject Narrative discourse, or storytelling, is used in daily conversational interactions and reveals higher-level language skills that may not be well captured by standardised assessments of language. Many autistic individuals and individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) show difficulty with pragmatic and expressive language skills. What this paper adds to existing knowledge We found that many aspects of the narratives produced by the adolescents/young adults in the autism and FASD groups were comparable to each other and to the neurotypical group. However, the groups differed on three global measures of narrative production: rate of speech, number of mazes per total words and the description of conflict/resolution in the narratives produced. Also, significant variability was observed within groups, suggesting that narrative abilities should be considered at an individual level as opposed to their clinical groups. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This study showed that narrative discourse is an appropriate task that can be added to routine clinical assessments of language abilities in autistic adolescents/young adults as well as those with FASD or typical development and has the potential to reveal higher-level, real-world language skills. An important clinical implication of this study is that narrative language abilities should be considered at an individual level and individual-tailored interventions based on ability level due to the variability observed across individuals.

Development and Prospects of National Intelligent System for Testing General Language Competencies Deployed Through Neural Network Solutions

The article presents the results of approbation of the intellectual system for testing general language competences (ISTOK) developed by testologists, linguists, specialists in methodology of teaching foreign languages and in artificial intelligence. This system includes a range of tests assessing language ability at levels from A2 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), as well as an adaptive placement test. All test materials are calibrated according to the CEFR. ISTOK is an adaptive testing system deployed through neural network solutions and providing assessment of receptive and productive language skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing) by using artificial intelligence and/or neurolinguistic models. The process of ISTOK development implied, apart from writing test items, putting together databases of writing and speaking assignments marked by professional assessors and assessment criteria for productive skills, as well as algorithms to identify various types of mistakes with the help of artificial intelligence. The results of various testing cohorts with the total number of test takers exceeding 5,000 demonstrated high reliability and objectified test validity. The new approach to language skills testing can be used for various purposes in higher education institutions, as well and to identify and/or confirm language proficiency of personnel in different organisations and businesses, while the principles of training and practical use of neurolinguistic models will find wide application in various fields of applied research.

Language Abilities are Associated with Both Verbal and Nonverbal Intelligence in Children on the Autism Spectrum

ABSTRACT Intellectual abilities factor into levels of functioning used to characterize autism. Language difficulties are highly prevalent in autism and may impact performance on measures of intellectual abilities. As such, nonverbal tests are often prioritized in classifying intelligence in those with language difficulties and autism. However, the relationship between language abilities and intellectual performance is not well characterized, and the superiority of tests with nonverbal instructions is not well established. The current study evaluates verbal and nonverbal intellectual abilities in the context of language abilities in autism and the potential benefit of tests with nonverbal instructions. Participants were 55 children and adolescents on the autism spectrum who underwent a neuropsychological evaluation as part of a study examining language functioning in autism. Correlation analyses were performed to examine relations between expressive and receptive language abilities. Language abilities (CELF−4) were significantly correlated with all measures of both verbal (WISC-IV VCI) and nonverbal intelligence scores (WISC-IV PRI and Leiter-R). There were no significant differences between nonverbal intelligence measures with verbal or nonverbal instructions. We further discuss the role of assessment of language abilities in interpreting results of intelligence testing in populations with higher prevalence of language difficulties

Semantic fluency in primary school-age children with vision impairment

Purpose Semantic fluency is potentially a useful tool for vocabulary assessment in children with vision impairment because it contains no visual test stimuli. It is not known whether in the primary school years children with vision impairment perform more poorly on semantic fluency tasks compared to their sighted peers. Method We compared semantic fluency performance of two groups of 5- to 11-year-old British English speaking children—one group with vision impairment and one without. We also investigated within-group differences in performance, based on severity of vision impairment. We administered one category (animals) to children with vision impairment (n = 45) and sighted children (n = 30). Participants had one minute to respond. Responses were coded for accuracy, error type, clusters, and switches. Result Correct responses increased with age within each group. Groups did not differ significantly on any outcome measure. Severity of vision impairment did not impact task performance. Conclusion Results suggested that semantic fluency performance—at least for the category animals—is not different in children with vision impairment compared to sighted children. Findings also suggest that semantic fluency could be a suitable addition to the tools that speech-language pathologists use to assess language abilities in children with vision impairment.

A Tablet-Based Aphasia Assessment System "STELA": Feasibility and Validation Study.

There is an extensive library of language tests, each with excellent psychometric properties; however, many of the tests available take considerable administration time, possibly bearing psychological strain on patients. The Short and Tailored Evaluation of Language Ability (STELA) is a simplified, tablet-based language ability assessment system developed to address this issue, with a reduced number of items and automated testing process. The aim of this paper is to assess the administration time, internal consistency, and validity of the STELA. The STELA consists of a tablet app, a microphone, and an input keypad for clinician's use. The system is designed to assess language ability with 52 questions grouped into 2 comprehension modalities (auditory comprehension and reading comprehension) and 3 expression modalities (naming and sentence formation, repetition, and reading aloud). Performance in each modality was scored as the correct answer rate (0-100), and overall performance expressed as the sum of modality scores (out of 500 points). The time taken to complete the STELA was significantly less than the time for the WAB (mean 16.2, SD 9.4 vs mean 149.3, SD 64.1 minutes; P<.001). The STELA's total score was strongly correlated with the WAB Aphasia Quotient (r=0.93, P<.001), supporting the former's concurrent validity concerning the WAB, which is a gold-standard aphasia assessment. Strong correlations were also observed at the subscale level; STELA auditory comprehension versus WAB auditory comprehension (r=0.75, P<.001), STELA repetition versus WAB repetition (r=0.96, P<.001), STELA naming and sentence formation versus WAB naming and word finding (r=0.81, P<.001), and the sum of STELA reading comprehension or reading aloud versus WAB reading (r=0.82, P<.001). Cronbach α obtained for each modality was .862 for auditory comprehension, .872 for reading comprehension, .902 for naming and sentence formation, .787 for repetition, and .892 for reading aloud. Global Cronbach α was .961. The average of the values of item-total correlation to each subscale was 0.61 (SD 0.17). Our study confirmed significant time reduction in the assessment of language ability and provided evidence for good internal consistency and validity of the STELA tablet-based aphasia assessment system.

Language patterns in Japanese patients with Alzheimer disease: A machine learning approach.

The authors applied natural language processing and machine learning to explore the disease-related language patterns that warrant objective measures for assessing language ability in Japanese patients with Alzheimer disease (AD), while most previous studies have used large publicly available data sets in Euro-American languages. The authors obtained 276 speech samples from 42 patients with AD and 52 healthy controls, aged 50 years or older. A natural language processing library for Python was used, spaCy, with an add-on library, GiNZA, which is a Japanese parser based on Universal Dependencies designed to facilitate multilingual parser development. The authors used eXtreme Gradient Boosting for our classification algorithm. Each unit of part-of-speech and dependency was tagged and counted to create features such as tag-frequency and tag-to-tag transition-frequency. Each feature's importance was computed during the 100-fold repeated random subsampling validation and averaged. The model resulted in an accuracy of 0.84 (SD=0.06), and an area under the curve of 0.90 (SD=0.03). Among the features that were important for such predictions, seven of the top 10 features were related to part-of-speech, while the remaining three were related to dependency. A box plot analysis demonstrated that the appearance rates of content words-related features were lower among the patients, whereas those with stagnation-related features were higher. The current study demonstrated a promising level of accuracy for predicting AD and found the language patterns corresponding to the type of lexical-semantic decline known as 'empty speech', which is regarded as a characteristic of AD.

FORMS OF ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS’ ABILITIES AND QUALITIES IN VIETNAMESE SUBJECTS

The article is based on Circulars, Regulations, General Training Program 2018 on the Vietnamese's objectives, content, and requirements in primary schools to present and clarify two forms of assessment of students’ abilities and qualities in Vietnamese including regular assessment and periodic assessment. From the analysis and affirmation: to confirm the progress of students, it is necessary to use the form of process assessment, also known as regular assessment. To confirm the student's learning results after a period, it is necessary to use a form of summative assessment, also known as periodical assessment. Through the assessment process, it helps teachers to assess the quality and assess the general capacity in Vietnamese integrated into the assessment of language ability, that is, to assess what students can do to solve the tasks in reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Identifying the Latent Profiles of Language Ability in 5- to 7-Year-Old Children

Objectives: Classifying children into two language ability groups, with and without language impairment, may underestimate the number of groups with distinct language ability patterns. In this study, we tried to classify the children based on their language performance. The purpose of this study was to identify the number and characteristics of latent language ability groups in Korean children. Methods: An unclassified sample of 147 Korean children aged 5 to 7 years participated in the study. Oral language skills in phonological (phonological awareness task), semantical (receptive vocabulary test), and syntactical (sentence repetition task) areas; language processing skills in processing capacity (non-word repetition task); and processing speed (rapid automatized naming task) were assessed. Latent profile analysis was conducted on the language measures. Results: Results indicated that a four-group model best represented the data, characterized by high performance in one group (15.7%), average skills in another group (65.8%), low processing speed in a third group (12.3%), and low grammaticality in a fourth group (6.2%). Conclusion: The latent profiles of language ability in Korean children seemed to be largely divided according to their level of language performance. However, in the group of children with low performance, the existence of different profiles was identified. This suggests that children with low performance may have difficulties learning language for two reasons: difficulties with either grammar or processing speed. Thus, assessing language abilities without testing both areas could potentially lead to misdiagnosis.

Research on Children's Cognitive Education Based on Pathological Linguistics.

The value of pathological linguistics in children's cognitive development has attracted more and more experts' attention. Based on pathological linguistics, this paper establishes an intervention system for children's cognition-language assessment and cognitive education, guided by a set of fixed procedures, which can quickly collect children's speech data in a short period of time. Based on this evaluation paradigm, the lab collected a large number of speech data of children aged 2-14 in the process of verbal communication. Based on the six linguistic dimensions of phonology, productivity, fluency, grammar, semantics, and logic, the corpus was subdivided into 16 indicators for manual annotation and machine recognition. A cognitive-language assessment database is established for language ability assessment and language barrier screening, and on this basis, the children's language assessment and cognitive education intervention system is completed based on six modules: user, assessment, scale, resources, teaching, and data. Through experimental research, this paper proves that there are differences in the contribution rates of six language dimensions to the screening of children's language disorders, and the top three are fluency (29.6%), pronunciation (25.7%), and productivity (19.3%). By analyzing the contribution rates, the development of children's comprehensive speech ability can be evaluated more accurately. The early intervention education of children's cognition has a great relationship with their comprehensive language ability. The intervention education before the age of 3 is beneficial to the language development of children with disabilities. Children's cognitive education has improved in cognitive performance, cognitive generalization level, emotional cognition, and language expression, indicating that the use of cognitive education system has a good effect, improving the level of children's cognitive education.

Research on the Construction of Value Evaluation Model of Pragmatic Function of Spoken English Discourse Markers Under the Perspective of Smoking Cessation Discourse

In view of the needs of the use of spoken English discourse markers in different situations under cross-cultural communication, it is necessary to standardize the language use of communicators and give full play to the pragmatic value of spoken English discourse markers. By establishing the pragmatic function evaluation model of spoken English discourse markers in the context of smoking cessation and tobacco control from the perspective of smoking cessation discourse, English communicative conversation in the context of smoking cessation and tobacco control is studied in this paper. Based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and starting from four layers including the target layer, criterion layer, index layer and scheme layer, this paper designs an evaluation model of pragmatic functional value of spoken English discourse markers from the perspective of smoking cessation discourse through hierarchy theory model construction, judgment matrix construction, hierarchical single ranking and consistency test, hierarchical total ranking and consistency test. The model is used in the context of communication, language training and language assessment. The model is suitable for simulating communicative behavior, language ability training and language ability assessment in smoking cessation and tobacco control scenarios. It can improve the accuracy of the use of discourse markers, facilitate the reasonable choice of discourse markers in special communication scenarios, ensure the efficiency of English communication, and highlight the unique value of discourse markers in different communication scenarios.

Cluster Analysis of the Challenges of Teaching Korean to Immigrant Learners

This study examined challenges Korean language teachers face in classroom teaching contexts, based on typologies derived from a cluster analysis. A total of 181 teachers teaching adult immigrants were surveyed on their challenges using a 24-item survey across the following five dimensions: (1) teaching contents and teaching methods, (2) curriculum design and resource development, (3) language ability assessment, (4) learner counseling, and (5) cultural education. The cluster analysis suggested a three-cluster pattern based on the degree of challenge. Results indicate that the clusters differed significantly in the degree and order of perceived challenges. In addition, when socio-demographic data were considered, results revealed contrasts in the motivation for pursuing professional development, teaching experiences, teaching region, and professional development experience. This study thus provides insight into the multifaceted challenges Korean language teachers face and holds important implications for future professional development.

Instances of trouble in aphasia and dementia: an analysis of trouble domain and interactional consequences

ABSTRACT Background Language problems in dementia resemble the symptoms of aphasia in many respects. Persons with aphasia (PWA) and persons with dementia (PWD) present rather similar results on standardised language tests and cognitive screening tools. There is limited research that compares PWA’s and PWD’s language abilities, and a particularly small number of studies have an interactional focus. Aims In this study, we will contribute to the emergent discussion about interaction in aphasia and dementia. The aim was to investigate instances of trouble in conversations involving PWD, PWA and speech and language pathologists (SLPs), with a particular focus on trouble domain and interactional consequences. Methods & Procedures Ten PWD and 10 PWA were video-recorded during informal conversations with SLPs. Ten minutes of each conversation were transcribed thoroughly according to Conversation Analytical principles and instances of trouble were identified and calculated throughout the data. Thereafter, the instances of trouble were categorised by trouble domain: as connected to either primarily linguistic or cognitive issues. Outcomes & results At first glance, the conversations between the PWD and PWA seemed rather similar when looking at the number of turns and the number of instances of trouble. The analyses, however, reveal that significantly more turns were spent on trouble solving in the conversations involving the PWA. The vast majority of the troubles involving the PWA were categorised as being connected primarily to linguistic issues, whereas trouble among the PWD were more evenly distributed between the trouble domains. The SLPs took a more active role in supporting the conversations of the PWA than for the PWD. Conclusions The results indicate that many conversational troubles involving PWD are connected to primarily linguistic issues. However, PWD seem to have less severe linguistic problems compared to PWA. The analyses also reveal that many of the language problems described in PWD might be a direct consequence of cognitive issues, and that SLPs may take a more passive role in trouble solving in conversations involving PWD. The lack of personal common ground and preconceived notions about the medical conditions are discussed as potential motives for the SLPs’ behaviour. The analysis of instances of trouble in informal conversations might contribute to both research and clinical assessment of language abilities in PWA and PWD.

Early postnatal growth and subsequent neurodevelopment in children delivered at term: The ELFE cohort study.

Despite the limited evidence, accelerated early postnatal growth (EPG) is commonly believed to benefit neurodevelopment for term-born infants, especially those small for gestational age. To investigate the existence of critical time windows in the association of EPG with neurodevelopment, considering birth size groups. In the French ELFE birth cohort, 12,854 term-born neonates were classified as small, appropriate or large for gestational age (SGA, AGA, LGA, respectively). Parents reported their child's development by using the Child Development Inventory (CDI-score) at age 12months and the MacArthur-Bates Development Inventory (MAB-score; 100score units) assessing language ability at age 24months. Predictions of individual weight, body mass index (BMI), length, and head circumference (HC) from birth to age 24months were obtained from repeated measurements fitted with the Jenss-Bayley mixed-effects model. For each infant, conditional gains (CG) in these growth parameters were generated at four-time points (3, 6, 12 and 24months) representing specific variations in growth parameters during 0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-24months, independent of previous measures. Using multivariable linear regression models, we provided the estimate differences of the neurodevelopmental scores according to variation of each growth parameter CG, by birth size group. For SGA infants, the MAB-score differed by 5.8 (95% confidence interval [CI] -0.2, 11.8), 6.7 (95% CI -0.1, 13.3), and 9.7 (95% CI 1.9, 17.5) score units when CG in BMI, weight, and HC at 3months varied from -2 to 1standard deviation, respectively. For all infants, MAB-score was linearly and positively associated with length conditional gains at 12months, with stronger magnitude for SGA infants. Results for the CDI-score were overall consistent with those for MAB-score. For term-born SGA infants, moderate catch-up in HC, BMI and weight within the first 3months of life may benefit later neurodevelopment, which could guide clinicians to monitor EPG.

Visuospatial training has positive effect on language abilities in children with Delirium diagnoses and inclusion of delirium-specific

IntroductionIt was shown that children with specific language impairments (SLI) have deficits not only in producing and understanding language but also in visuospatial abilities (Kiselev et al., 2016). We assume that training programs that are aimed to develop the visuospatial abilities can help children with SLI.ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to assess the impact of visuospatial training on the language abilities in 6–7 years old children with SLI.MethodsThe participants were 20 children aged 6–7 years with SLI. Children were randomly assigned to the intervention and comparison group. Children from intervention group participated in 8 weeks of visuospatial training. This programme trains the child to do different visuospatial exercises both on motor and cognitive level. This programme is built on the conceptual framework derived from the work of Luria’s theory of restoration of neurocognitive functions (Luria, 1963, 1974). We used the subtests from Luria’s child neuropsychological assessment battery to assess language abilities in children before and after the intervention period.ResultsAnalysis of covariance tested the effect of visuospatial training programme on five language subtest from Luria’s child neuropsychological assessment battery. Group differences (p&lt;.05) were found for subtest that assess understanding prepositions that describe the spatial relations between objects. Posttest mean for the intervention group were significantly (p&lt;.05) greater than the control group.ConclusionsIt can be assumed that visuospatial training in children with SLI benefits specific language abilities for understanding sentences with spatial prepositions.

MC listening questions vs. integrated listening-to-summarize tasks: What listening abilities do they assess?

Integrated listening-to-summarize (LTS) tasks and multiple-choice (MC) questions are two formats frequently used in combination in a language test. However, it remains somewhat unclear what abilities are assessed by these formats and, particularly, to what extent they assess language abilities required in real-life communication. In response to this issue, this study conceptualized language abilities as processes test-takers used to successfully complete the tests and investigated the listening processes used to complete the two formats, MC listening questions and LTS tasks. Twenty-four Thai university participants completed the test items and took part in a stimulated recall immediately after completing each item. Their responses were scored for performing levels and the stimulated-recall data were analysed for listening processes. The results showed that while successful completion of the MC format relied mainly on cognitive processing at the lower level, i.e., word recognition and parsing, the LTS tasks engaged successful listeners at the higher-level. Some strategies important in real-life listening were used for the LTS tasks but not for the MC items. Although supporting the continued use of MC format for language assessment, this study emphasizes that listening integrated tasks are important for assessing language abilities used in a non-testing context.

Development and evaluation of the Ingwavuma receptive vocabulary test: A tool for assessing receptive vocabulary in isiZulu-speaking preschool children.

BackgroundThis study used local resources- community members, photographer and speech therapists to develop a new test for screening receptive language skills and sought to determine its feasibility for use with a larger population in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to develop a one-word receptive vocabulary test appropriate for screening and diagnosis of isiZulu-speaking preschool-aged children. The objectives were (1) to determine sensitivity and specificity of the Ingwavuma Receptive Vocabulary Test (IRVT) and (2) to determine the relationship of IRVT scores with age, gender, time and the confounding variables of stunting and school.MethodThe study was quantitative, cross-sectional and descriptive in nature. The IRVT was piloted before being administered to 51 children (4–6 years old). Statistical analysis of test item prevalence, correlations to confounding variables and validity measurements were conducted using Statistical Package for Social Scientists version 25 (SPSS 25).ResultsThe IRVT was able to profile the receptive skills for the preschool children in Ingwavuma. The mean raw score for boys was 35, and 32 for girls. There was a significant Pearson correlation between test scores and age (0.028, p < 0.05) with a high effect size (Cohen’s d = 0. 949), gender (r = –0.032, p < 0.05) with a medium effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.521) and school (r = 0.033, p < 0.05) with a small effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.353). The sensitivity and specificity values were 66.7% and 33%, respectively. The test reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.739, with a good test–retest reliability.ConclusionThe IRVT has potential as a screening test for isiZulu receptive vocabulary skills amongst preschool children. This study contributes to a development of clinical and research resources for assessing language abilities.