Assessing the french lexicon of school children in Gabon

Abstract

The correlations between academic achievement and lexical skills in children are strong, in Gabon as elsewhere. Nowadays the assessment of these skills in students suffers from a lack of standardized tools. The aim of the study is to adapt a language assessment tool originally developed in France to a sample of 189 Gabonese students, to test its reliability and to normalise it. The results show the improvement of the psychometric qualities of the tool and provide a first set of normative data. This tool is useful for identifying needs, even disorders, and guiding interventions. It can be used in Gabon by speech therapistsor special needs teachers for practice or research. Moreover, the relationship between lexical skills and the age of students in Gabon is confirmed and shows a steady increase in performance both in production and in reception from 3 to 11 years. The role of the sociology of schools, public or private, has been demonstrated and needs to be studied now with urban and rural schools.