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Abstract:
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The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot a naming test for Urdu -English bilinguals , a population that is growing quickly in the United States . Eighty -five target items were selected from the International Picture Naming Project Database and arranged in the order of least to most familiar . Familiarity ratings were used as estimates of item difficulty to develop the naming task because word frequency information was not available in the Urdu language . Thirty -one young adult bilinguals named black -and -white drawing of these targets in both Urdu and English . Self -rating of proficiency , examiner rating of proficiency and a standardized English receptive vocabulary test were used to cross -validate the naming test . The participants' current and cumulative language use were measured to investigate the relationships among language use , naming performance , and other measures of proficiency . The results indicate that performance on the naming test was correlated with convergent measures of language proficiency , including self -rating , examiner rating , and standardized test performance . Naming performance was related to cumulative reading experience in participants' first language . Familiarity ratings were related to naming performance in Urdu . These findings suggest that the naming task developed in the current study is a valid measure of language proficiency , and that familiarity ratings can be used as estimation of item difficulty in test development when word frequency data are unavailable . The naming test should be refined and further piloted with participants of various ages and those who are Urdu -dominant or balanced bilingual . |