The concurrent validity of the Minnesota Child Development Inventory as a measure of young children's language development.
The extent to which the Minnesota Child Development Inventory (MCDI), could be used to estimate levels of language development in 2-year-old children was examined. Fifty-seven children between 23 and 28 months were given the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development (SICD), and at the same time a parent completed the MCDI. In addition the mean length of utterance (MLU) was obtained for each child from a spontaneous speech sample. The MCDI Expressive Language scale was found to be a strong predictor of both the SICD Expressive scale and MLU. The MCDI Comprehension-Conceptual scale, presumably a receptive language measure, was moderately correlated with the SICD Receptive scale; however, it was also strongly correlated with the expressive measures. These results demonstrated that the Expressive Language scale of the MCDI was a valid predictor of expressive language for 2-year-old children. The MCDI Comprehension-Conceptual scale appeared to assess both receptive and expressive language, thus complicating its interpretation.
Tomblin
J B
JB
University of Iowa, Iowa City.
Shonrock
C M
CM
Hardy
J C
JC
D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests