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Experimental Arabic Linguistics
Edited by Dimitrios Ntelitheos and Tommi Tsz-Cheung Leung
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 10] 2021
► pp. 125–142

LATFA

An assessment tool for Emirati Arabic-speaking children

ORCID logo | United Arab Emirates University

Research demonstrates the existing links between oral language and literacy. The present chapter introduces the Language Acquisition Test for Arabic (LATFA), an assessment tool based on oral language skills to predict future literacy difficulties in Emirati Arabic (EA) speaking children. A total of forty-three EA speaking children were evaluated in EA using the LATFA tool on their language perception (i.e., phonological awareness & speech perception) and language production (i.e., morphological awareness & phonological production) at the end of their first grade in school. A year later, the same children were assessed with three literacy tasks. Results show that the LATFA tool can help in predicting and identifying literacy difficulties faced by EA speaking children.

Keywords: Emirati Arabic (EA), LATFA, assessment tool, literacy, oral language, children
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Phase 1: Oral language assessment
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Procedure
    • 3.3Speech perception task
    • 3.4Phonological awareness task
    • 3.5Morphological awareness task
    • 3.6Phonological production task
  • 4.Phase 2: Literacy assessment
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Procedure
    • 4.3Arabic alphabet task
    • 4.4Dictation task
    • 4.5Arabic plurals task
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Future directions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.10.05mar
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