I.T.P.A.'s Grammatical Closure to Serve the Psycholinguistic Diagnosis

Abstract

Within a concrete sociolinguistic and pedagogical context (in this case, Catalan), the article states the necessity of the availability of adequate instruments for the evaluation of the leve1 attained by the young population in the basic habits of the language.

The "Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities" (ITPA, 1969) is chosen; its development and principal characteristics are described, according to Osgood's tridimensional model of communication.

The main part of the article deals with the description of the process of validation to Catalan of one of the verbal sub-tests of ITPA, Grammatic Closure: elaboration of the items, experimental trials and application to a sample of 400 individuals. T h e validity and reliability of the test are studied and the results obtained are discussed.

We believe that the work makes a positive contribution to the scientific study of the process of acquirement of the automatic habits of the Catalan language in Catalan-speaking children. We also believe that the results obtained can be applied to the study of the same process in non Catalan-speaking children who live in a Catalan-Castilian environment of diglossia and learn al1 subjects zn Catalan, or learn the Catalan language.