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

Authors

  • Racha Zebib UMR 1253, iBrain, Université de Tours, Inserm, Tours, France.
  • Guillemette Henry Institut Supérieur d’Orthophonie, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon
  • Camille Messarra Institut Supérieur d’Orthophonie, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon
  • Edith Kouba Hreich Institut Supérieur d’Orthophonie, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon
  • Abdelhamid Khomsi

Keywords:

Lebanese Arabic, Language Assessment, Psychometric Testing

Abstract

The ELO-L 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 between three and 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.

Author Biographies

Racha Zebib, UMR 1253, iBrain, Université de Tours, Inserm, Tours, France.

Racha Zebib is an associate professor of Linguistics at University of Tours, France, and a member of the INSERM Unit iBrain.  She has a degree in Speech-Language Therapy from Saint-Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon, and a PhD in psycholinguistics from University of Tours. Her current research focuses on typical and atypical language development (Developmental Language Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder) in monolingual and multilingual children as well as on the relationship between language and executive functions. One of her main areas of interest is language assessment in multilingual contexts.  She teaches B.A. and M.A. courses in the linguistics department and in the school of speech-language therapy in Tours and in Beirut.

Guillemette Henry, Institut Supérieur d’Orthophonie, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon

Guillemette Henry is a teacher and researcher in the Speech therapy department at University Saint Joseph (USJ) in Beirut, Lebanon. She attended the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris for her undergraduate school and completed her graduate school at USJ with a master in Speech therapy.  Cofounder of Classes Orange, a school dedicated to children with special needs in Lebanon, she has a special interest in any speech challenge met in a bilingual setting. Her research is focused on the evaluation of written and spoken language of Lebanese children and her work aims to create developmental measuring standards required to a better speech therapy practice.

Camille Messarra, Institut Supérieur d’Orthophonie, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon

Camille Messarra is a Speech and Language Therapist currently preparing her PhD in Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) from Université de Liège in Belgium and in neuroscience, from Saint Joseph University of Beirut. Her main research is focusing on supporting language and communication development in children from 0 to 3, through an implementation of a preventive professional development program targeting early childhood educators in nurseries and daycares. She is the head of the Speech Therapy program in Saint Joseph University of Beirut and a lecturer in the same department. She shares her professional activity between assessment and counseling in children with communication and developmental language disorders and their families, and teaching in the same domains. She also participates in developing research at the SLT department in Saint Joseph University of Beirut especially in the domains of prevention, deafness and SLT assessments and intervention in the Lebanese multilingual contexts.

Edith Kouba Hreich, Institut Supérieur d’Orthophonie, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon

Edith Kouba Hreich is a Speech and Language Therapist currently preparing her PhD in Speech and Language Therapy from Université de Liège in Belgium and in neuroscience, from Saint Joseph University of Beirut. Her main research is focusing on supporting language and communication development in children from 3 to 5, through a collaborative program targeting speech and language therapists and preschool teachers. She is a lecturer in the department of Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) of Saint Joseph University of Beirut and the master program coordinator of the same department. She shares her professional activity between assessment and early intervention in children with social communication disorders or with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and teaching in the same domains. She also participates to research activities in the field of prevention, ASD and in the field of SLT assessment and intervention in the Lebanese multilingual context.

Abdelhamid Khomsi

Abedlhamid Khomsi is emeritus professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Tours.  Trained in both psychology and linguistics, he defended a doctoral dissertation on the phonetics and phonology of Arabic, and then an habilitation dissertation on oral language comprehension in young children.  He held professorships at the Université of Nantes, in psychology, and the University of Tours, in linguistics.  He is the author of a number of tools for assessing oral and written language.  He has also authored a variety of oral and written language rehabilitation instruments.  He published the original (French) version of the ELO battery in 2001.

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Published

07/15/2019

How to Cite

Zebib, R., Henry, G., Messarra, C., Kouba Hreich, E., & Khomsi, A. (2019). ELO-L: A Norm-Referenced Language Screening Test for 3 to 8 Year-Old Lebanese Children. Arab Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 24–53. Retrieved from http://mail.arjals.com/ajal/article/view/146

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2019): Language Assessment in the Middle East and North Africa

Section

New Articles

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