Abstract:
The Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (ROWPVT) in English offers an assessment of a child's receptive single-word vocabulary, which is the child's ability to identify a picture, from among a group of pictures, that depicts the stimulus word presented orally by the examiner. When the ROWPVT is used alone, it provides an effective means for evaluating the receptive vocabulary of those with expressive difficulties, such as bilingual, speech impaired, immature and withdrawn, and emotionally and physically impaired children. However, the ROWPVT was designed as a companion to the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT) so that the examiner will be able to make accurate comparisons between the test performance of a child on both tests. The test is individually-administered and norm-referenced. It is intended for use with children ages 2 through 11 years 11 months old. The stimulus items are 100 test plates ordered according to difficulty. Each plate consists of four illustrations, from which the child is asked to select the picture that matches the word presented orally by the examiner. The test can be administered in 10 to 15 minutes, and scoring can be completed in 5 minutes or less. A "Critical Range" of testing is established when basal and ceiling scores are obtained (8 consecutive correct answers and 6 consecutive incorrect answers). Establishing this range makes it unnecessary to administer the entire test. Raw scores obtained from the ROWPVT can be converted to standard scores, stanines, language ages, and percentile ranks. Because the norms on this test are equivalent to those of the EOWPVT, the examiner can make a direct comparison of the standard scored obtained on the two tests to determine whether a performance discrepancy exists. Although this test was normed on children whose primary language is English, the test can also be administered to bilingual children to determine the extent of their English vocabulary. For children whose primary language is Spanish, the Spanish version of the ROWPVT can be used to obtain an estimate of their Spanish vocabulary. The median of Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients was .90, and concurrent validity with the WISC-R ranged from .23 to .41.