Vocabulary performance of Malay school-age children in Malaysia: Starting points to developing language assessments for older children with developmental language disorder (DLD)

The unavailability of language assessments for older Malay children in Malaysia has turned the identification and management of children with language disorders into an arduous process. This has left many children with developmental language disorder undiagnosed and without proper support. This study aims to evaluate the utility of a vocabulary assessment designed for Malay school-age children who predominantly use Malay, focusing on comparisons between typically developing and children at-risk of language disorder to determine whether it can differentiate and highlight qualitative nuances between groups. A total of 118 typically developing children aged 6;0 to 12;11 years (<i>M</i> = 109.20 months; <i>SD</i> = 19.35) completed a newly developed picture pointing receptive and word definition expressive vocabulary task. A small group of children at-risk of language disorder were then matched with typically developing children (<i>n</i> = 15) for comparison. Both receptive and expressive subtests showed good reliability (α = 0.881; α = 0.915 respectively). Findings revealed that vocabulary scores increased with age and that children at-risk of language disorder had significantly poorer scores and qualitative responses compared to their typically developing peers. The vocabulary assessment demonstrates potential for evaluating vocabulary skills among Malay school-age children, with further research needed to establish reference scores for speech-language pathology therapeutic clinical application.

马来西亚缺乏针对年长马来儿童的语言评估工具，导致语言障碍儿童的识别与管理工作变得十分艰巨。这使得许多患有发育性语言障碍（developmental language disorder）的儿童未能得到诊断，也无法获得适当支持。本研究旨在评估一款为主要使用马来语的学龄儿童设计的词汇评估工具的效用，重点通过比较典型发育儿童与语言障碍风险儿童，验证该工具能否区分两组儿童并凸显其质性差异（qualitative nuances）。共118名年龄在6岁0个月至12岁11个月之间的典型发育儿童（M = 109.20个月；SD = 19.35）完成了新开发的图片指认接受性词汇任务（receptive vocabulary task）与词语定义表达性词汇任务（expressive vocabulary task）。随后，研究人员选取了一小组语言障碍风险儿童（n = 15），与典型发育儿童进行匹配并展开比较。接受性与表达性子测试均显示出良好的信度（reliability）（α = 0.881；α = 0.915）。研究结果表明，词汇得分随年龄增长而提高；与典型发育儿童相比，语言障碍风险儿童的得分显著更低，且质性反应表现更差。该词汇评估工具在评估马来学龄儿童词汇技能方面具有应用潜力，但仍需进一步研究以建立参考分数，从而支持其在言语语言病理学临床治疗中的应用。