ABSTRACT
Many disciplines engage in the assessment of aphasia, which is conducted in various languages, in various forms, across many countries and for different purposes. In this chapter we consider the use of assessments, briefly review the development of aphasia assessments and describe some types of assessments. The need for procedures and materials for testing bi-lingual speakers with aphasia has been recognized for some time (Paradis, 1987), and there are a growing number of tests that are used across different languages. Some of these are translations and some are specially adapted for each new language. In this chapter, we consider why it is necessary to make adaptations rather than translate tests to use in different languages. By way of illustration, a brief description is given of the development of two tests that are used across two languages: the PALPA (originally written in English and then adapted for Dutch) and the Verb and Sentence Test (VAST: originally written in Dutch and then adapted for English). However, it is sometimes necessary to assess people in a language other than their primary language, a contemporary problem we discuss.
