The NEPSY II test for children aged 3 – 16 years, has been translated into Afrikaans, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Setswana, Sepedi and Sesotho.  The List Memory subtest of the NEPSY II is very similar to the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and is a good test of immediate memory, verbal learning and delayed verbal memory.  Having the test in the different languages makes it potentially very useful in the assessment of many South Africans.

The NEPSY II List Memory subtest has one draw-back, though: it does not have a recognition format as the RAVLT does.  A recognition format is where the words from the list that is learned in the test, are presented with other words, and the patient is asked to identify only the words that were on the list.  The benefit of this additional task is that it reveals whether verbal delayed recall problems are due to storage difficulties or retrieval difficulties.

Researchers wanting to investigate this, will need to design a recognition format.  It is recommended that they do so based on the principles of the RAVLT Recognition Format (as explained in Lezak’s “Neuropsychological Assessment“).  Once the recognition format has been designed, several healthy children would need to be tested in the List Memory subtest along with the new recognition format, to collect norms/to see how “normal” children fare on this test.

Variations on the theme:

• Children from different age groups can be compared.
• Children with high and low SES can be compared.
• Recognition formats can be designed for each of the six South African languages into which the NEPSY II has been translated and the performance on the different list learning tests and recognition formats compared.

Please leave a reply/comment below, especially if you are thinking of doing this research.