ELO-L - A Norm-Referenced Language Screening Test for 3 to 8-Year-Old Lebanese Children - Abstract and Introduction

Oct 15, 2026

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ELO-L (Évaluation du langage oral chez l’enfant libanais) is the first norm-referenced language-screening test in Lebanon, adapted from the French ELO. The test was normed on 1,718 children aged three to eight across eight age groups. It includes five subtests covering receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, sentence production, and expressive phonology, with scoring and normative sampling reported alongside initial validation results. Validation addresses developmental sensitivity, reliability, concurrent validity, and diagnostic accuracy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages30

Reading Time1 h 16 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Language disorders and assessment in bilingual contexts

Multilingual background in Lebanon

Instruction languages and exposure patterns

Implications for language test development

ELO-L: A Norm-Referenced Language Screening Test for 3 to 8-Year-Old Lebanese Children Arab Journal of Applied Linguistics e-ISSN 2490-4198 Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2019, 24-53 © The Authors [http://www.arjals.com](http://www.arjals.com) Racha Zebib, UMR 1253, iBrain, Université de Tours, Inserm, Tours, France. Guillemette Henry, Camille Messarra & Edith Kouba Hreich. Institut Supérieur d’Orthophonie, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon. Abdelhamid Khomsi, emeritus professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Tours. Abstract The ELO-L (Évaluation du langage oral chez l’enfant libanais) is the first norm-referenced language-screening test in Lebanon. It is an adaptation of the ELO, a French language-screening test. The ELO-L was normed on 1, 718 children aged three to eight years and divided into eight age groups with a minimum of 100 participants in each group. It is composed of five subtests targeting receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, sentence production and expressive phonology. We explain how the test was adapted for Lebanese, and present the subtests, the scoring method and the normative sample. We furthermore give the first validation results, reporting on developmental sensitivity, reliability, concurrent validity and diagnostic accuracy. Keywords: Lebanese Arabic, Language Assessment, Psychometric Testing Introduction Speech and language disorders are described as communication disorders characterized by reduced vocabulary, limited sentence structure, impairments in discourse and persistent deficits in speech sound production (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) . The diagnosis of these disorders depends mainly on a thorough assessment of language abilities. According to the American Psychiatric Association, language assessments should take into consideration the cultural and linguistic environment, especially in bilingual contexts. Indeed, several studies have shown that bilingualism may affect performance in a given language (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015; de Jong, Cavus & Baker. 2010; Genesee, Paradis, & Crago. 2004; Paradis, 2010a; Paradis, Genesee, & Crago, 2011) and using assessment tools standardized on monolingual populations to assess bilingual children is a source of misdiagnoses (Paradis, 2010b) . Therefore, taking into account bilingualism, while developing language tests, is essential in multilingual contexts (see Armon-Lotem et al., 2015) . Lebanon is a multilingual country in which the majority of the population uses Lebanese Arabic (Northern Levantine Arabic) . A considerable proportion of the population is also exposed to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and more than half are exposed to one or two other languages, mainly French and/or English. Other minority languages, such as Kurdish and Armenian, also exist (Verdeil, Ghaleb, & Velut, 2007) . It is important to emphasize that second-language learning is obligatory in Lebanese schools, regardless of the type of school: public schools, private fee-paying schools or free private schools. Private fee-paying schools are the schools with the largest student population (more than half of Lebanese students) in Lebanon (Gouteyron et al., 2000- 2001, Hoyek, 2004) . These schools are considered to provide higher quality education than public schools (Verdeil, Faour & Velut, 2007), which rank second in terms of number of students. Free private schools are very few in number and educate relatively few students (Gouteyron et al., 2000-2001) . National law imposes bilingual education in public schools starting, at the latest, in first grade (age 6) . Private schools generally introduce instruction in a second language in kindergarten. Some schools introduce a third language during the school curriculum (Shaaban, 2017) . In general, the number of instruction hours in a language other than Arabic is equivalent to or greater than the number of hours in Arabic, depending on the particular scho

FAQs

What is the ELO-L test and what is its purpose in Lebanon?

The ELO-L is the first norm-referenced language-screening test in Lebanon, designed to screen language abilities in Lebanese children aged three to eight based on a standardized approach.

How is the ELO-L structured in terms of subtests?

It comprises five subtests targeting receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, sentence production, and expressive phonology.

What validation aspects are reported for the ELO-L?

The document reports first validation results, including developmental sensitivity, reliability, concurrent validity, and diagnostic accuracy.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Dipper