Leksikaalsetest

Leksikaalsetest are assessment tools used to measure vocabulary knowledge, lexical access, and semantic processing. They form a family of tasks applied in linguistics, psychology, education, and clinical settings to gauge how well a person knows words, their meanings, and how quickly and accurately those words can be retrieved or recognized. In practice, leksikaalsetest can evaluate both receptive vocabulary (understanding) and productive vocabulary (producing words).

Common task types include lexical decision tasks (deciding whether a string of letters forms a real word), picture naming (naming depicted objects), and verbal fluency tests (generating as many words as possible within a category or starting with a given letter in a time limit). Other examples are word recognition and discrimination tasks, synonym/antonym judgments, definition matching, and receptive or productive vocabulary tests that probe meaning knowledge and usage. In second language contexts, leksikaalsetest assess breadth (the number of known words) and depth (richness of knowledge, including collocations and register).

Interpretation focuses on accuracy, speed, and error patterns, and tests are often used alongside other language measures to form profiles of language ability. They support monitoring language development, informing educational decisions, and aiding clinical diagnosis of language disorders such as aphasia, dementia, or dyslexia, as well as age-related decline. Researchers stress reliability, validity, and cultural-linguistic appropriateness, with normative data tailored to specific populations and languages.