2/8/2019

Filipino SLPs using Western Assessment Tools

◦ Imagine buying clothes from an another country

LEXICAL DIVERSITY AND ◦ These clothes are tailored for a certain trend, size, and climate.
◦ Now imagine yourself using these clothes in our country
DENSITY OF THE FILIPINO ◦ It might be too big or too small.

LANGUAGE ◦ It might look “too” fashionable

◦ It might not be comfortable for the climate in our country
An Echo Lecture

◦ Just like Filipino SLPs, due to lack of assessment tools and norms, we
continue to import western norms and standards in our practice.

But we need those tools… Factors that make it wrong

◦ Errors in child’s responses

◦It is practical due to lack of resources and norms. ◦ Differences in environmental exposure
◦ Culture
◦The only means is through translation or adaptation ◦ Nature of language

of such western tools. ◦ Western tools are very ANALYTICAL in nature meaning each morpheme determine a lexical
function
◦ In the Filipino language, the root can be configured by more than one morpheme class (affix or
particle)
◦So what is wrong? ◦ Each morpheme can mean differently depending on the context it is used
◦ A word’s part of speech membership can only be determined after fusion of multiple morphemes
resulting to multiple word transformations each carrying a unique lexical function.

Lexical Diversity

LEXICAL DIVERSITY ◦ Range of lexical extent, its balance, and the speaker’s avoidance of
repeating the words already used.
AND ◦ Measured by:
◦ Number of different words
LEXICAL DENSITY ◦ Counting the total number of different words or types
◦ Type – Token Ratio
◦ Comparing the total number of different words or types over running words or tokens

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Lexical Density
◦ Percentage of lexical items or content words against the
function words in a spoken or written samples ARE WE REALLY MEASURING
◦ A measure to determine and segregate words that convey OUR CHILD’S TRUE
pure lexical meaning versus words that carry grammatical LANGUAGE SKILLS?
functions

The Filipino Language 3 Morphological Classes

◦ Agglutinative Language ◦ Roots
◦ A word may consist of units with several meanings that remain unchanged or ◦ Base forms which are capable of taking an affix
modified even after their fusion ◦ Cannot be classified to any lexical category unless one or more affixes are attached to it to
determine its use or meaning.
◦ Derivational in Nature ◦ Affixes
◦ The morphological units fuse to form new words with new word meanings and ◦ Dependent morpheme class that can be attached to roots and identify the word’s classification
classification instead of just changing its syntactic and morphological features based on how it is used
◦ Particles
◦ Morpheme class that are independent of any affix

3 Morphological Classes English Protocol versus Filipino Protocol

◦ All word transformations will be counted ◦ Different stems or transformations of
◦ Once word formation using these classes are complete, words can be classified
as one word type, regardless of the root word are counted as different
into different lexical categories: inflections and contracted forms word types
◦ Nouns
◦ Compound words and expressions are ◦ Compound words or hyphenated words
◦ Verbs counted as one word type are counted as one word
◦ Determiners ◦ Homonyms with different categories are ◦ Homonyms that have different
◦ Pronouns counted separately categories are counted separately
◦ Numerals ◦ Lexical items that are counted are nouns, ◦ Lexical items that are counted are roots,
◦ Modifiers verbs, adjectives and adverbs affixes and particles
◦ Clitic Particles
◦ Linkers or connectives

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LEXICAL DENSITY
English Protocol vs Filipino Protocol vs
Western Normative Values
◦ Filipino children yielded lower results compared to Templin’s
normative data
◦ English-speaking children have wider and more diverse vocabulary than
Filipino children
◦ Other factors that should be considered are the language’s unique linguistic and
cultural differences and the tasks interaction constraints
English Protocol versus Filipino Protocol
◦ Higher values were obtained from the Filipino protocol compared to
the English protocol
◦ Due to method of counting of lexical items
◦ Filipino protocol provides a more appropriate form of counting morphological
classes since these not only changes meaning, but all carry lexical meanings
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English Protocol versus Filipino Protocol
◦ Higher lexical diversity values were obtained from the Filipino
protocol
◦ Emphasized more on the nature of the Filipino language where each
morphological classes changes the word’s lexical categories
◦ Commonly used words in the Filipino language may not be classified
accordingly if the lexical categories in the English protocol will be used
LEXICAL DIVERSITY
English Protocol vs Filipino Protocol vs
Western Normative Values
◦ Higher values were obtained from Filipino children
compared to Western-based normative values
◦ Expected for languages with a more bound morphology as they
tend to have higher proportion of lexical items.
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Relationship of Diversity and Density
◦ Typically developing Filipino dominant children ages 4:0 – 4:11 have
LOW lexical diversity but HIGH lexical density compared to English-
speaking children.
◦ To change a meaning of a word, Filipino dominant children rely heavily in
adding various combinations of affixes and particles to the limited number of
roots
◦ Since lexical diversity is an analysis of language content while lexical diversity is
an analysis of language form, their string correlation indicates that acquisition
of rich lexicon in Filipino children happens through a simultaneous
development of form and content.
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Implication in Practice
◦ Filipino children’s use of words should not be quantified by the number of different words but
also the number of lexical items within those words were used.
◦ Comparing lexical diversity and density values of Filipino children to the current western norms is
not an appropriate basis for lexical richness. Thus, the use of the Filipino protocol is a pressing
need for assessment.
◦ Include both lexical diversity and density analysis in the comprehensive assessment batteries of
SLPs.
◦ Vocabulary building should not only focus on acquisition of nouns and verbs but also modifiers.
◦ Simultaneously target FORM and CONTENT. Work on child’s form as early as possible.
◦ Model correct morphological and grammatical form to nurture and teach them with it’s correct
use instead of inly increasing the number of root words.