Adaptation of the Multilingual Naming Test to Azerbaijani Culture: Identifying and Modifying Culturally Inappropriate Items

Objective: The Multilingual Naming Test (MINT) is widely utilized for assessing language abilities in various populations, yet its applicability to Azerbaijani-speaking individuals remains underexplored. This study aimed to identifying culturally inappropriate items on the MINT test for Azerbaijani population (Experiment 1) and adapt test to the population via modifying culturally irrelevant stimulus (Experiment 2). Method: Two groups performed MINT in Experiment 1: healthy subjects (N=40) and patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or post-stroke aphasia (N=20). One group performed MINT in Experiment 2: healthy participants (N=100). Results: The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or aphasia scored significantly lower on the MINT compared to healthy participants, confirming the test's discriminative validity and its ability to detect anomia in the Azerbaijani population and also identified culturally mismatched items. Experiment 2 revealed that the adapted version of the MINT, which replaced culturally mismatched items, resulted in higher accuracy rates among Azerbaijani participants, indicating improved cultural suitability. Conclusion: Overall, the findings suggest that while the MINT is a useful tool for assessing anomia, cultural and linguistic differences must be carefully considered when applying it to non-English-speaking populations, highlighting the necessity of proper adaptation for Azerbaijani speakers. In addition, comparison to age, sex, race, and education-corrected norms to determine impairment is essential. Keywords: MINT, post-stroke aphasia, Alzheimer’s disease, cultural adaptation, language testing