[Normative study of the Boston naming test in 7-year-old Japanese children].

OBJECTIVES

The Boston Naming Test (BNT) has been used to assess the language development of children in many epidemiology studies, and its usefulness is confirmed. The BNT consists of 60 black and white line drawings of objects and animals. There are no normative data available for this test for Japanese children. The purpose of this study was to collect normative information in Japan and to examine the correlation between the score of the BNT and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children third edition (WISC-III).

METHODS

The BNT was translated into Japanese and administered in children registered to the birth cohort of the Tohoku Study of Child Development at the age of 84 months. The participants for analysis in this study were 449 children (237 boys, 212 girls).

RESULTS

There were four items with percentage scores below 1%; Igloo, Knocker, Muzzle, and Yoke. Many Japanese children could answer 'abacus' and 'compass', which are difficult for US children. Although the score of the BNT correlated with IQ of the WISC-III (p<0.001), as compared with the previous studies, the correlation coefficient was low.

CONCLUSIONS

The BNT is quick and easy to use and valuable for researchers in evaluating language ability in children. Since the BNT was developed in the United States, the cultural values of that country are reflected in the BNT score. This implies that the BNT should be modified to fit Japanese population.