The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Aptitude: what it is and how it is used

A psychological test applied to children to measure their linguistic abilities.

Language, both written and oral, is fundamental to be able to understand and function in the social world, since it is what allows us to share our inner world and also to understand what others think and think.

Of course, presenting problems in this very human aspect is a serious matter, which requires professional intervention.

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Aptitudes is a diagnostic test used in children to evaluate if they have some kind of problem in the multiple components that make up the psycholinguistic functions, allowing to initiate an intervention focused on alleviating the deficits that may exist.

What is the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Aptitude?

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Aptitudes, authored by Samuel A. Kirk, James J. McCarthy, and Winifred D. Kirk, is a diagnostic instrument whose main purpose is to to detect both specific strengths and difficulties that children between the ages of 3 and 10 may exhibit. between 3 and 10 years of age. Its application takes about 60 minutes and only two notebooks with linguistic stimuli, a notebook, a stopwatch and correction templates are necessary.

This test serves as a tool to to evaluate language problems and, in this way, to develop an educational intervention, measuring the psycholinguistic functions of the child's language.The test measures the psycholinguistic functions involved in the communicative ability of children, which can serve as indicators of a possible developmental and learning disorder.

The validity of this questionnaire, which aims to assess psycholinguistic processes in children in childhood and pre-adolescence, is high, and has been carried out using Pearson's correlation test. In addition, it has a high reliability.

What does it evaluate and how does it do it?

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Aptitudes measures, as we mentioned in the previous section, several of the psycholinguistic functions of children. These abilities become very important in order to carry out satisfactorily communication, both oral and written..

The questionnaire is made up of 11 subtests, which are grouped into two channels, the first 5 subtests being grouped in the visuo-motor channel and the following 6 in the auditory-vocal channel.

Subtest number 12 presented here corresponds to one that has been discarded in more recent editions of the questionnaire, but it is nevertheless interesting to dedicate a brief mention to it.

Visual comprehension

The ability of the evaluee to obtain the meaning of the symbols that are presented visually is observed.

The child is asked is asked to show a certain object or person shown on a piece of paper or sheet of the from the questionnaire.

2. Visuomotor sequential memory

The ability to reproduce from memory sequences of figures without a clear meaning after a sequence has been briefly presented to the child is evaluated here, testing the child's short-term memory.

This subtest of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities is ideal for assessing the child's visual-motor coordination, as well as for observing whether the child is able to discern between the drawn figure and the background.

Knowing how to differentiate between one figure and another presented in two dimensions is fundamental to successfully to be able to acquire the ability to read and write satisfactorily.

3. Visual association

This test shows the child's ability to relate concepts that are presented visually. The child is presented with drawings that he/she has to relate to a previous drawing..

This subtest allows working on several aspects, such as motor expression, lexical comprehension, visual-motor coordination, oral expression and symbolic play.

4. Visual integration

It is observed how capable the child is of identifying animals, objects or other groups of known elements from a schematic or incomplete representation of these.

Thus Thus, it is possible to see the child's ability to discern between the figure and the background.which, as we have already mentioned, is a key skill during the learning of reading and writing.

5. Motor expression

This subtest may seem to be the least related to a person's psycholinguistic abilities, but the fact is that the ability to gesticulate meanings manually is perhaps the most is perhaps the most complicated thing to do if you are a hearing person.

It is measured by presenting drawings of everyday objects in which the child has the task of imitating how he/she would use it or expressing in gesture form what it is as unequivocally as possible.

6. Auditory comprehension

The test evaluates the child's ability to obtain the meaning of spoken language, in addition to working on his or her visual-motor coordination.

To measure listening comprehension, a fragment of a text, adapted to the child's age, is read aloud to the child. Then, the child is shown pictures with drawings that refer to what he/she has heard.

From this, The child is asked questions to see if he/she has understood what has been read to him/her, asking him/her to point out which images best fit the text or the facts described in it.The child is asked to point out which images are more appropriate to the text or to the events described in it.

7. Auditory association

It measures the child's ability to relate concepts that are presented orally. This is of great importance in spoken language, allowing the child to relate what is being said with what has already been said, having a clear idea of the topic being discussed.

To test this ability to handle linguistic symbols with meaning orally, a series of verbal analogies are made, with increasing difficulty.

In addition to seeing the child's oral capacity, it is also possible to see what his lexical level is and his capacity to recover the vocabulary he has been acquiring.

8. Auditory sequential memory

It allows to orally evaluate the immediate recall of non-significant material. That is to say, it allows to know what vocabulary recovery capacity the child has, but without talking about a specific topic or related to a list of words.

The test consists of repeating a series of two to eight digits, working on short-term memory and auditory perception.The test consists of repeating a series of two to eight digits, working on short-term memory and auditory perception.

9. Verbal expression

Verbal expression verbal fluency and the lexicon that the child possesses with respect to a specific semantic field. semantic field. In this way, it is observed how much they know about a particular topic and if the vocabulary needs to be worked on because it is deficient for their age.

This can be analyzed from the number of concepts that the child can describe verbally, as well as relating them to others and using their real name instead of resorting to vague and incomplete descriptions.

10. Grammatical integration

This subtest evaluates the child's syntactic and grammatical ability by presenting incomplete sentences to be completed with pictures. The child must complete them so that they acquire a meaningful meaning.

Here it is possible to work on many aspects related to the aspects described above, such as auditory and visual comprehension.Here it is possible to work on many aspects related to the aspects described above, such as their auditory and visual comprehension, as well as their mastery of the vocabulary related to the sentence to be completed.

11. Auditory integration

Evaluates the ability to to produce a word from the pronunciation of the first phonemes of the word.. For example, the child may be asked 'What am I talking about? Carame...'

12. Sound gathering

The ability to synthesize the sounds separated by a word in order to produce the complete word is evaluated.

Rules for applying the test

As with other tests, it is essential to respect a series of rules so that the evaluation carried out with the Illinois Psycholinguistic Aptitude Test is as objective and reliable as possible. Thus, it is necessary to keep the following points in mind during the it is necessary to take into account the following aspects during the application of this test:

• Thorough mastery of the questionnaire from tests prior to its application.
• The application environment must be suitable and free of distracting elements.
• The child's interest in taking the test must be captured.
• The test materials should be in the best possible condition.
• The test should be administered in a single session.
• When administering the test, the evaluator and the tested should be seated facing each other.
• It is recommended to have the manual at hand.

How can the child's psycholinguistic skills be improved?

It is possible that some deficits, both visuo-motor and auditory, may have been found in the child after the test has been administered. Although this may be an indicator of a language, developmental or learning disorder and a professional should be consulted, it may also be only a minor problem. In either case, there are a number of strategies that can be there are a number of strategies that can be applied to improve a child's psycholinguistic abilities..

One of the best things parents can do is to tell stories to their children, since this will allow them to see first-hand what their comprehension capacity is, as well as to see what they have understood from the story that has been explained to them. This also helps to expand their vocabulary and their ability to explain what they have understood.

Another option is to ask them to explain the world around them. He can be asked to describe what butterflies are like, what things he has seen today in class or in the street, what his schoolmates are like....

Bibliographical references:

• Junqué y Plaja, C., Bruna y Rabassa, O., & Mataró y Serrat, M. (2004). Neuropsychology of language: Normal and pathological functioning. Rehabilitation. Barcelona: Masson
• Kirk, S., McCarthy, J., & Kirk, W. (2009). Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Aptitude (7th ed. ed.). (S. Ballesteros, & A. Cordero, Trads.) Madrid: TEA Ediciones.
• Martínez, E. (2002). Linguistics: theory and applications. Barcelona: Masson.
• Narbona, J., & Chevrie-Muller, C. (2003). The Language of the Child. Normal Development, Evaluation and Disorders (2nd ed.). Barcelona: Masson.