Abstract
This study evaluates the reliability of two differently constructed screening instruments for language delay. Only few studies have addressed the question of early identification at population level. Data for this article were drawn from a Finnish cohort study, entitled the Steps to the Healthy Development and Well-Being of Children (the STEPS study, N = 9.936). The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI-T), based on parent reported vocabulary, was used for screening at 24 months. At 36 months, child’s language skills were screened with the Fox Language Inventory (FLI) carried out by a clinical nurse. The Renfrew Word Finding Vocabulary Test and Reynell Developmental Language Scales III (language comprehension), served as outcome measures at 36 months. Receiver operating characteristic-analysis (ROC) was used to examine the cost and benefit of the two screening methods in decision making at 36 months. We found that expressive vocabulary at 24 months, can already foretell later language development. However, to reach even better predictivity, screening based on a structured language battery and age point of 36 months would be a valuable addition to clinical assessment. Further studies are needed to address to what extend early screening is able to predict atypical language during later preschool-years.
Highlights
During the child’s second year of life, parents often become concerned if their child does not talk as other child-How to cite this paper: Korpilahti, P., Kaljonen, A., & Jansson-Verkasalo, E. (2016)
At 24 months 9.6% of the target children were categorized as language delayed, using the Communicative Development Inventories (CDI-T) as a screening instrument
Screening with the Fox Language Inventory (FLI) did show that 10.9% of the study population had delayed language at 36 months
Summary
During the child’s second year of life, parents often become concerned if their child does not talk as other child-How to cite this paper: Korpilahti, P., Kaljonen, A., & Jansson-Verkasalo, E. (2016). Even the slow learners are known to improve their vocabulary from 2 to 3 years, and quite many of them are reported to have roughly normal language skills at 5 or 6 years (Rescorla & Lee, 1999; Rescorla, Roberts, & Dahlgaard, 1997). Despite this natural recovery, some children with early speech and language delay have an increased risk for learning disabilities at school (Bishop & Clarkson, 2003; Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002; Rescorla, 2009). Language-delayed children have more frequently behavioral and psychosocial problems than their typically developed age-mates (Cohen, Menna, Vallance, Barwick, Im, & Horodezky, 1998)
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