NeureHitz is a clinical tool of individual administration, designed to assess oral language skills in Basque in children aged 5 to 8 years, aiming to identify possible language and communication disorders and guide intervention. The full battery will consist of 10 tests that will assess the psycholinguistic processes involved in comprehension and expression in all areas of language: phonetics and phonology, vocabulary, morphosyntax and semantics.
The battery is still under development, so not all tests are available yet. Below is a brief description of each of the tests of the battery:
Task: Ahozko esaldien ulermena (Oral sentence comprehension)
Aim: To assess competence in interpreting and understanding sentences of varying levels of oral complexity.
Description: The subject must select, among 4 images, the one that corresponds to the sentence heard.
Task: Epe laburreko oroimena: hitzak (Short-term memory: words)
Aim: To assess competence in word-related short-term memory.
Description: The subject will hear some words and must repeat them.
Task: Epe laburreko oroimena: pseudohitzak (Short-term memory: pseudowords)
Aim: To assess competence in pseudoword-related short-term memory.
Description: The subject will hear some pseudowords and must repeat them.
Task: Epe laburreko oroimena: esaldiak (Short-term memory: sentences)
Aim: To assess competence in short-term memory in relation to sentences of increasing length and complexity.
Description: The subject will hear some sentences and will have to repeat them.
Task: Sintaxia: esaldi sinpleak (Syntax: simple sentences)
Aim: To assess competence in oral production of simple sentences that are semantically and grammatically complete.
Description: The subject will see a picture and will have to make a sentence accordingly.
Task: Hiztegia (Vocabulary)
Aim: To assess lexical competence.
Description: The subject will see pictures and will have to name them.
Task: Prozesu fonologikoak (Phonological processes)
Aim: To assess competence in phonological and phonetic production. This competence is evaluated through 3 conditions: spontaneous speech, naming, and repetition.
Description: Spontaneous speech: The subject will see some pictures to induce spontaneous production of words containing the targeted phonemes
Naming: The subject must name the highlighted parts of the pictures seen in the previous phase.
Repetition: The subject will hear some words corresponding to the pictures of previous phases and must repeat them.
Task: Epai gramatikala (Grammatical judgement)
Aim: To assess competence in applying and identifying morphosyntactic rules in a sentence.
Description: The subject will hear some sentences and will have to decide whether the sentence is made correctly or not.
Task: Kontzientzia fonologikoa: Errima (Phonological awareness: rhyming)
Aim: To assess the subject’s competence in phonological awareness through rhyming.
Description: The subject will see two images at the same time and, 3 seconds later, he/she will hear a pseudoword. The subject will have to select the picture that rhymes with the audio.
Task: Entzumen bereizketa: silabak (Listening discrimination: syllables)
Aim: To assess the subject’s competence in discriminating auditory syllables.
Description: The subject will see three silhouettes, two small ones on the sides and a large one in the middle, which will pronounce a syllable. The subject´s goal is to discern which small silhouette repeats the same syllable as the large silhouette.
