The Renfrew Word Finding Scale: Application to the South African context

Abstract

The Renfrew Word Finding Scale (Renfrew, 1988) was administered to 30 Indian (Group A) and 30 White (Group B) Durban English speaking children aged between eight between and nine years to determine its suitability for assessment of expressive vocabulary. Mean scores for both groups were statistically compared to the British norms in terms of means raw scores and mean mental age. Mean score groups A and B were compared to each other. Item analyses were carried out to obtain further information regarding possible lexical characteristics for each group and common problems with certain items. Both groups performed significantly poorer than expected according to the British norms. Group A was significantly lower than group B, thus indicating the test unsuitability for use with these population groups in its presents form.