Developing a turkish nonword repetition test: Implementation with children with specific language impairment

In this study, the results of a non-word repetition test developed to identify Turkish children with specific language impairment (SLI) are reported. The test is comprised of 30 non-words (15 language like ? 15 language unlike). Each set (language like and language unlike) contained three non-words with one, two, three, four and five syllables. While forming the non-words, frequencies of different syllable structures as well as the phonotactics of real Turkish words were taken into consideration.The test was administered to three different groups. The first group comprised of children with SLI aged between 4 and 8. The second group included 20 normally developing children chronological age matched with SLI children. The third group included normally developing children aged between 3 and 7 with language scores similar to that of SLI children.After determining that the children in the first group meet all the criteria of SLI, Turkish Language Development Test and Non-Word Repetition Test were administered. The performances of the children were scored in three different ways based on the accuracy of the repetition as a whole word, accuracy of only the consonants in the word, and accuracy of only the vowels in the word.To determine the specification, sensitivity and the likelihood ratio of the test, the test scores of 120 normally developing children aged between 4 and 8 in addition to the 20 children with SLI were calculated.The results showed that there were significant differences among the three groups in all three different types of scoring but scoring accuracy based on whole words was better in distinguishing the three groups. The results also showed that there was no meaningful relation between the ages of children and their performance in language like non-words. However, there was a positive relation between age and their performance in language unlike non-words. Gender and IQ test results did not show a significant difference within each group.Key Words: Specific Language Impairment, non-word repetition test, clinical marker, language like non-words, language unlike non-words, syllable structure