Constructing a measure of verbal fluency for children with mild mental disabilities

The aim of the research was to build a scale to measure verbal fluency for children with mild mental disabilities, verify its validity and reliability, and extract its criteria. The research sample consisted of (50) children with mild intellectual disabilities in the third grade of primary school in intellectual education schools in Beni Suef Governorate. Their ages ranged between (9- 12) years, with an arithmetic mean of (10.80) and a standard deviation of (1.20) Their intelligence quotients ranged between (55 – 70) The verbal fluency scale (prepared by the researcher) in its final form consists of (38) items distributed across (5) dimensions: the first dimension, word generation, consists of (6) items; the second dimension, continuity of speech, consists of (10) items; the third dimension, rate of succession in speech, consists of (7) items; and the fourth dimension, psyical and psychological mainifestations during speech, consists of (8) items; the fifth dimension, avoidance behavior, consists of (7) items. The scale is scored using the three-item Likert scale. Psychometric characteristics include internal consistency indicators, criterion validity, and reliability using the retest, split-half, and Alpha method, using the descriptive approach. The results indicate that the verbal fluency scale for children with mild intellectual disabilities has a high degree of validity and reliability and is therefore suitable for use with a high degree of confidence.