Submitted by Bartosz Kielczewski on Wed, 28/08/2013 - 16:05
The new 4th Edition of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-4) and the 2nd Edition of CELF Preschool are to be standardised in the UK .
The Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge is pleased to announce that it has won a new contract to adapt and re-standardise a major American language assessment for the UK.
Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals®-Fourth Edition (CELF®-4) is a major new approach to language assessment that enables clinicians to accurately and reliably assess a child's language difficulties in one-third less time.
This contract marks a further development of the relationship between Pearson Assessment and The Psychometric Centre's Director, Professor John Rust, who has been involved in the creation of UK editions of the company's flagship Wechsler tests, which measure human abilities across the life span.
John Rust commented: "Testing is becoming international at an increasing pace. This is affecting clinical, occupational and educational uses equally and has shown itself both in the amount of test adaptation being undertaken and the number of students from all over the world who are interested in training on our postgraduate, psychometric programmes."
Test adaptation is more complex than simple translation: "We have made something of a specialty of it. Not only are we involved in adapting tests from the Psychological Corporation in the USA; we are also adapting two work-related personality instruments originally published in German. You can't just translate the questions and gather new data; you have to be sensitive to nuances of language and the cultural context within which the tests are being used. This is especially true of tests which are specifically being used to measure language. The USA and the UK are often described as being two nations divided by a single language. Test adaptation proves this cliché to be true."
About CELF-IV
The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition (CELF-4) was developed in the United States by Eleanor Semel, Ed.D.; Elisabeth H. Wiig, Ph.D.; and Wayne A. Secord, Ph.D. It provides a comprehensive approach to screening language disorders and then examining them in more depth. The new edition has improved diagnostic power and many new features.
Administration of the 4 core subtests provides a Total Language Score to determine if a problem exists and whether the student qualifies for services. But in addition to this, CELF-4 helps clinicians determine the nature of the language disorder: the student's language strengths and weaknesses; Receptive Language and Expressive Language Scores; and additional scores on Language Structure, Language Content, Language Content and Memory, and Working Memory Scores. Further subtests provide even richer information on underlying skills such as Phonological Awareness, Rapid Automatic Naming, Digit Span, Sequences, Word Associations and the Memory Composites.
About Pearson Assessment
Psychologist James McKeen Cattell founded the Psychological Corporation in New York in 1921, joining forces with two other eminent psychologists, Robert Sessions Woodworth and Edward Lee Thorndike. The three men started a business to market psychological tests and related materials to educational, corporate and government clients. In 1939, the company published the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scales. The company's Wechsler intelligence tests continue to be industry leaders today.
Through many changes and acquisitions, the Psychological Corporation name has remained a by-word for testing and assessment excellence. The Psychological Corpiration is now part of Pearson Assessment.
Its headquarters are in San Antonio, Texas. In recent years the Psychological Corporation has appointed distributors and acquired companies throughout Europe and its clinical tests are probably the most widely used range in Europe. Acquisition of companies in France, The Netherlands and the UK are putting it on the cutting edge of test adaptation procedures and it is working closely with The Psychometrics Centre on a number of projects.
About The Psychometrics Centre
The Psychometrics Centre is a centre of excellence in the growing field of psychometric testing. The Centre focuses on four core areas:
Training: The Centre's courses range from Research Degrees to shorter 3 or 5 day causes in particular topics.
Services to Industry: These range from consultancy to the UK 's most advanced unit to deliver tests on-line as part of recruitment, development and other organisational interventions.
Developing New Tests: The Centre has contracts with The Psychological Corporation, the world's largest test publisher and with The Test Agency, part of the Hogrefe Group.
Research: Research at the Centre focuses on the theory and practice of testing: including application of new technology, adaptation between cultures and use of actuarial disciplines to create more robust prediction models.