Semantic assessment battery for Malay-speaking adults with aphasia

Abstract

Background: There are no language assessment tools designed specifically for the 200 million Malay-speaking people in SE Asia so practitioners use translations or informal tests. This paper describes the development of a semantic battery in Malay, a language that differs substantially from English.

Methods & Procedures: The battery was developed in Singapore using a cognitive neuropsychological model of language representation and administered to three cohorts of neurologically intact adults with Malay as their first-language (N = 63, age ranges 20–40, 40–60, > 60 years). The 12 subtests (6 each for nouns and verbs) cover input and output modalities (listening, reading, speaking, and spelling) and all the picture referents were standardised locally.

Outcomes & Results: From an initial pool of 130 items, an item analysis revealed that 52 nouns and 45 verbs (97 words) achieved > 80% accuracy across subtests for first-language speakers of Malay. The normative profiles developed for each cohort suggest that educational background influenced processing abilities, especially reading and spelling skills.

Conclusions: The Malay Semantic Battery provides an example of how culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment tools can be developed from first principles at minimal cost. Details of the battery will be made available to clinicians online, or through e-mail, to support their planning of targeted intervention programmes.

Keywords:

• Dysphasia
• Semantic processing
• Language problems
• Bilingual aphasia

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Master of Science (Speech and Language Pathology) Programme, Division of Graduate Medical Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (http://www.med.nus.edu.sg/dgms/SLP.shtml). The authors are grateful to Melvin Yap, Sara Da Silva Ramos, and two anonymous referees, for their insightful comments on earlier drafts.