Use of the aphasia test with slovenian-italian and italian-slovenian bilingual persons

The language is the fundamental means of communication. We know the verbal language, the non-verbal language or gesture and the sign language. With the language we describe actions, concepts and things. A person can speak only one language (mother tongue), or more languages. We can learn other languages even during childhood, or later in adulthood. The level of knowledge of both languages varies from person to person, and it can be improved by learning and using it properly. Knowledge of the mother tongue or a second language can improve through the years, or can drop if it is not used. Various diseases can affect the application of a know language in the elderly population. Among the most significant is aphasia. Aphasia can be caused by a brain injury, stroke or a tumor. It is linked to a language that is already acquired. Aphasia is characterized by having difficulty with words: there can be too many or too few, depending from the injury. In the theoretical part of the thesis we focused on three main areas: brain function, aphasia and biligualism, namely Slovene-Italian and Italian-Slovene. Considering the chosen topic, for the empiric part of the thesis we used the test for aphasia in bilingual subjects (Bilingual Aphasia Test - BAT), as it has been newly translated in Slovene. We wanted to establish guiding norms in bilingual subjects and determine whether the test is suitable for all ages. We tested bilingual subjects aged from 50 to 80 years, that had no neurologic are degenerative damage. With the results that we acquired we confirmed hypothesis 2, 3 and 4, so sex, language and education do not affect the results of the BAT test. According to the results we did find out that age does affect the results of the BAT test. The difference can be seen especially between the younger population (50-59 years old) and the older population (70-80 years old). This means that when using the BAT test we have to take into account these differences