تقنين وتطوير اختبار الينوى للقدرات النفسية واللغوية بالنسبة للاطفال المصريين

"Standardization and Modification Of Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities on Egyptian Children

Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) is a comparable diagnostic intra-individual test of psychological and linguistic functions. ITPA is used to identify psycholinguistic abilities and disabilities in children and to establish whether or not remediation is needed. It is used to clarify the strong and weak points of the abilities to determine the most appropriate mode of education.

The  ITPA has also been used for the purpose of identification of language impairment in children. But it is applied mainly on children with learning disabilities. ITPA is one of the tests which represent an effort along the line learning disability . The ITPA is obviously illustrating  the theory of learning disabilities, inspite of the presence of more tests in assessment of learning disabilities. The ITPA is based on the information processing theories in cognitive psychology ( input, integration, memory, and output). The idea here is that problems can happen at any stage along the information processing stages, and the test tries to determine just where this process breaks down .

The ITPA is considered a foreign test and heavily loaded with culturally, socially and linguistically restricted contents. So the test items are taken  and translated to Arabic language with specific modification of the culturally unsuitable items.

 The sample is chosen to be 240  normal children  not complaining of any learning problems, in the age range from 2years-7monthes to 10years-1month. The study  includes only  children  with average intellectual functioning, average school achievement, average characteristics of personal-social adjustment, with sensory-motor integrity, and from Arabic speaking families. The sample is distributed as 30 children for every 1 year age range. The whole sample is 124 females and 116 male; and it is representative of the Egyptian population.

The test is applied on this sample of children and the results of their responses are used to prove the validity and reliability of the test.

Reliability is proved by test-retest method. Validity is proved by developmental validity, internal consistency validity and contrasted group validity.

           The responses obtained from the test are called Raw scores which are efficient in correlational nature and and in comparing test retest results. Psycholinguistic age (PLA) in contrast to raw scores, expresses the performance in comparable units but do not take into account the differences in variability of scores from age to age and from subtest to subtest. Scaled Scores in contrast to both raw scores and PLA scores, take into account not only the mean performance of the normative group, but also the variability of scores about the mean. Scaled Scores are generally those most appropriate in making comparisons among the test-retest scores as well as in evaluating the individual's level in relation to the normative group or to another child.

        So tha Arabic ITPA yields  a psycholinguistic profile for the Egyptian children from age 2years 7months to 10years1month. It is applicable on normal children as well as those having learning disabilities."