title: Validity and reliability of the European-Portuguese preschool language assessment ALPE.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To design and standardize the Preschool Language Test (Teste de Linguagem-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, TL-ALPE) which assesses European Portuguese (EP)-speaking children's receptive and expressive language abilities.
  
  
  METHODS
  To standardize TL-ALPE, data was collected on 817 EP-speaking children aged 3 years and 0 months to 5 years and 12 months. The standardization, validity and reliability procedures of TL-ALPE followed the standard recommendations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  TL-ALPE presented a strong cohesion (internal consistency, >80%) and strong inter- and intrajudge reliability (>90%). The content validity was verified by the description of instrument domain and the items. The construct validity of TL-ALPE was confirmed by the proportional increase in mean score values with age for both receptive and expressive abilities. The results of concurrent validity revealed strong correlations between TL-ALPE and other EP preschool language tests for expressive and total language scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  TL-ALPE is a valid and reliable instrument to assess language skills of EP-speaking preschool children.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal (IPS), Setúbal, Portugal.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mendes
authors.forename: Marisa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lousada
authors.forename: Ana Rita
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Valente
authors.forename: Andreia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hall
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D011174:Portugal; D002666:Psychology, Child; D015203:Reproducibility of Results