Receptive vocabulary is one of the most important indicators of early language development and a strong predictor of later literacy acquisition and overall academic achievement. Despite its diagnostic value, Slovenia currently lacks a standardized instrument for assessing receptive vocabulary in preschool children. Consequently, speech and language therapists frequently rely on a combination of available language assessment tools, translated vocabulary tests, and locally developed informal materials. Such practice limits the objective identification of children with lexical-semantic difficulties. The aim of this master's thesis was therefore to develop a pilot version of a Slovene picture-based receptive vocabulary test for preschool children and to examine its initial psychometric properties.
The initial version of the BEsedno RAzumevanje (BERA) test comprised 200 picture items arranged into ten difficulty levels according to word frequency in Slovene. The test was piloted on a sample of typically developing monolingual Slovene-speaking children aged 3 to 6 years. Psychometric evaluation included analyses of item difficulty, item discrimination, developmental sensitivity, and internal consistency, followed by the iterative construction of the final pilot version of the instrument. In addition, developmental differences in test performance across age groups, difficulty levels, and word classes were examined.
The results demonstrated a statistically significant increase in children's performance with age, confirming the developmental sensitivity of the test. Children achieved the highest scores on verb items, followed by noun items, while adjective items proved to be the most difficult. Performance gradually declined across increasing difficulty levels. The iterative item selection procedure resulted in the removal of less suitable items and the development of a shortened pilot version comprising 64 items with improved psychometric characteristics, a more appropriate distribution of item difficulty, and high internal consistency.
While the theoretical part of the thesis provides a comprehensive overview of vocabulary development in childhood, including mechanisms of word learning and lexical organization in the mental lexicon, lexical-semantic processing in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and contemporary approaches to vocabulary assessment together with their methodological strengths and limitations, the empirical part represents the first systematic attempt to develop a Slovene receptive vocabulary test. The study provides a solid foundation for the future standardization of the instrument, the the establishment of normative data, and its application in the early identification of children with developmental language difficulties, as well as in monitoring language development in both clinical and research settings.
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