Purpose: fLEX (‘Multilingual assessment of inFlectional and LEXical processing’) is a software that has been developped for research purposes within the scope of the project Cross-language and Cross-population Verb Processing (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF Marie Curie). It is a multilingual language assessment tool aiming at identifying particular areas and degrees of vulnerability in language processing across languages, in developmental and acquired language disorders (Specific Language Impairment and aphasia, respectively).
Applicability: In its current version, the test includes 5 tasks for a total of 160 stimuli, all picture based. The pictures are perfectly suited for both adult and children populations. The software is implementable on a tablet, which is user-friendly and records participants´ audio responses. In addition, instructions are prerecorded in Basque, French and Spanish, so that the examiner may not know one of these languages but still can collect data.
Structure:
1. Modality: All tasks are oral because Basque schools (Ikastola) were created in the 70s. As a result, Basque adults with aphasia might not have learnt how to write in Basque (this situation will change with time).
2. Language: The test was developed in Basque, French and Spanish by taking into account and highlighting their morphosyntactic and morphophonological properties.
3. Discourse level: Both word and sentence levels are involved in order to assess lexical and morphosyntactic processes.
4. Language level: This test assesses both lexical (blue) and inflectional (red) processes, in order to determine whether verb argument structure complexity increases both lexical access and morphosyntactic difficulties.
5. Word category: The test involves noun and verb categories, both outside and within grammatical contexts, in order to assess whether lexical and inflectional errors cut across noun and verb categories.
6. Argument structure: intransitive, transitive and ditransitive verbs are included in order to assess verb argument structure complexity effects at lexical and morphosyntactic levels.
PI : Pourquié, M., Programmer : Lacroix, H., Designer : Lebel, E.
Pourquié, M., 2015. Intelectual property, 2016-01-88, Basque government
For more information : see Contact
Marie Pourquie 