Table 4 Mean scores and standard deviation scores of each item of the receptive part of the Arabic semantic test among the 4 participating age groups and comparison between them using the one-way ANOVA test

I. Identification of lexical semantic classes

153

125.60 ± 20.49

145.60 ± 5.10

148.03 ± 4.39

150.33 ± 2.48

41.83

0.000**

1) Nouns under different semantic classes

131

108.17 ± 16.34

125.00 ± 4.33

126.50 ± 4.26

128.50 ± 2.27

21.78

0.000**

2) Action verbs

12

10.60 ± 1.83

11.73 ± 0.58

11.83 ± 0.46

11.97 ± 0.18

37.88

0.000**

3) Adjectives

10

6.83 ± 3.27

8.87 ± 1.43

9.70 ± 0.70

9.87 ± 0.35

36.35

0.000**

II. Identify basic concepts

18

6.50 ± 5.82

10.90 ± 4.66

13.03 ± 3.27

15.27 ± 2.00

42.74

0.000**

1) Time concept

4

1.60 ± 1.83

2.53 ± 1.31

2.63 ± 1.22

3.33 ± 0.88

16.33

0.001**

2) Quantity concept

3

0.80 ± 1.16

1.40 ± 1.28

1.87 ± 1.11

2.60 ± 0.72

31.84

0.000**

3) Change concept

7

2.60 ± 2.74

3.97 ± 2.47

5.10 ± 1.63

5.50 ± 1.43

19.82

0.000**

4) Space concept

4

1.50 ± 1.14

3.00 ± 1.41

3.43 ± 1.04

3.83 ± 0.46

53.53

0.000**

III. Identify the name of a certain prototype

3

2.13 ± 0.97

2.90 ± 0.31

3.00 ± 0.00

2.90 ± 0.31

38.75

0.000**

IV. Categorization

3

1.47 ± 1.46

2.53 ± 0.68

2.77 ± 0.63

2.93 ± 0.25

28.37

0.000**

V. Word relations

12

6.40 ± 4.61

9.33 ± 1.94

10.07 ± 1.98

10.67 ± 1.49

18.54

0.000**

1) Polysemy

8

4.63 ± 3.01

7.07 ± 1.14

7.30 ± 1.09

7.53 ± 0.97

27.23

0.000**

2) Meronyms

4

1.77 ± 1.81

2.27 ± 1.20

2.77 ± 1.22

3.13 ± 1.22

13.23

0.004**

Test receptive scores

189

142.10 ± 30.70

171.3 ± 10.2

176.90 ± 7.77

182.10 ± 4.15

49.38

0.000**