Reliability and Validity of Four Arabic Language Tests - A comparison of performance of Qatari School-aged children with and without language impairment

Oct 15, 2026

This study examines the reliability and validity of four Arabic language tests—Sentence Comprehension Test (SCT), Expressive Language Test (ELT), Sentence Repetition Test (SRT), and Arabic Picture Vocabulary Test (APVT). The tests were administered to Qatari Arabic-speaking children in two groups: typically developing children (n=81–88) aged 4;6–9;4 years and children with specific language impairment (SLI) (n=26). Results indicate high reliability and validity, supporting the tools for diagnosing SLI and aligning with findings from prior research.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages29

Reading Time1 h 13 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Theoretical background

Challenges of working with children with SLI in Arabic

Sentence Comprehension in Arabic

Reliability and Validity of Four Arabic Language Tests: A comparison of performance of Qatari School-aged children with and without language impairment Arab Journal of Applied Linguistics e-ISSN 2490-4198 Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2017, 20-48 [http://www.arjals.com](http://www.arjals.com) Saleh Shaalan1 Abstract This study describes the reliability and validity of four language tests: The Sentence Comprehension Test (SCT), the Expressive Language Test (ELT), the Sentence Repetition Test (SRT), and the Arabic Picture Vocabulary Test (APVT) . These tests were administered to two groups of Qatari Arabic-speaking children: A typically developing group (n=81 to 88) aged 4;6-9;4 years old and a chronologically age-matched group with specific language impairment (SLI) (n=26) . The results of the four language tests showed high levels of reliability and validity and support the usefulness of these tools to diagnose children with SLI, whose performance on the tests was mostly consistent with findings in otherlanguages. Keywords: Qatari Arabic, child language development, Specific Language Impairment Theoretical background Specific language impairment (SLI) is one of the most common developmental language disorders with an estimate prevalence rate of 5.7%(Tomblin et al., 1997). It is defined by the presence of significant receptive and/or expressive language impairments in the absence of cognitive, sensorimotor, and social-emotional deficits (Bishop, 1997; Leonard, 1998) . Children with SLI are considered very heterogeneous as they come with varying individual linguistic abilities (Bishop, 1997; 2004; Leonard, 1998) . However, they typically show significant deficits in some important aspects of language development. For example, children with SLI showed more difficulties with sentence comprehension skills when compared to typically developing (TD) peers (Bishop, 1979; Deevy& Leonard, 2004; Montgomery, 1995; Montgomery & Evans, 2009; Norbury, Bishop, & Briscoe, 2002; van der 1The New England Center for Children-Abu Dhabi [sshaalan@neccuae.org](sshaalan@neccuae.org) Arab Journal of Applied Linguistics Lely, 1998) . Moreover, Children with SLI displayed significant deficits in many aspects of their expressive language skills, such as tense and agreement (Rice, Wexler & Hershberger, 1998), noun and verb morphology (Rice 2003; Rice et al, 1998), regular plurals (Oetting& Rice, 1993) . Furthermore, these children’s performance significantly lagged behind their peers’ performance on sentence repetition skills (Archibald &Joanisse, 2009; ContiRamsden, Botting, &Faragher, 2001) . Word learning and vocabulary development in children with SLI are another area where these children showed below average performance when compared to their TD peers (Rice, Cleave, &Oetting, 2010) . Researchers and clinicians working with children employ a variety of language tests to help them identify this heterogeneous population. Some of the most commonly used comprehensive language tests that are used with English-speaking children are the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4 (CELF-4, Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003) and the Preschool Language Scale- 5 (PLS-5; Zimmerman, Steiner & Pond, 2011) that assess different aspects of expressive and receptive language skills, such as sentence comprehension, sentence repetition, phonological awareness, and comprehension and production of different syntactic and morpho-syntactic structures. Moreover, most clinicians and researchers use vocabulary tests, such as the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4 (PPVT-4, Dunn & Dunn, 2007) as part of their test battery. Challenges of working with children with SLI in Arabic Despite being one of the most common childhood language disorders, SLI has not been studied thoroughly in Qatari Arabic or other varieties of Arabic, and clinicians and researchers working with this population have many challenges. The first challenge faced by any researcher studying this

FAQs

Which four Arabic language tests are evaluated in the study?

The study evaluates the Sentence Comprehension Test (SCT), the Expressive Language Test (ELT), the Sentence Repetition Test (SRT), and the Arabic Picture Vocabulary Test (APVT).

How were the study participants grouped?

Two groups of Qatari Arabic-speaking children were tested: a typically developing group (n=81–88; ages 4;6–9;4) and a group with specific language impairment (SLI) (n=26).

What does the study conclude about the tests’ reliability and validity for diagnosing SLI?

The four tests show high levels of reliability and validity, supporting their usefulness for diagnosing children with SLI.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by supergirl