Accuracy of Telehealth-Administered Measures to Screen Language in Spanish-Speaking Preschoolers.
BACKGROUND
There is a critical need for telehealth language screening measures for use with Spanish-speaking children because of the shortage of bilingual providers and the current lack of psychometrically sound measures that can be administered via telehealth. The purpose of the current study was to describe the classification accuracy of individual telehealth language screening measures as well as the accuracy of combinations of measures used with Spanish-speaking preschoolers from rural and underserved areas of the country.


METHODS
This study applied a hybrid telehealth approach that implemented synchronous videoconferencing, videocasting, and traditional pen and paper measures. Screening measures included a processing efficiency measure (Spanish nonword repetition [NWR]), language sampling, and a developmental language questionnaire. Eighty-two mostly Spanish-speaking preschool-age children and their parents participated. Thirty-four children had language impairment (LI), and 48 had typical language development.


RESULTS
Although many of the individual measures were significantly associated with standardized language scores (r=0.27-0.55), not one of the measures had classification values of 0.8 or higher, which is recommended when screening for LI. However, when NWR scores were combined with language sample or parent survey measures, promising classification accuracy values that approached or were higher than 0.8 were obtained.


CONCLUSIONS
This research provides preliminary evidence showing the effectiveness of a hybrid telehealth model in screening the language development of Spanish-speaking children. A processing efficiency measure, NWR, combined with a parent survey or language sample measure can provide informative and accurate diagnostic information when screening Spanish-speaking preschool-age children for LI.
1 Division of Communication Disorders, University of Wyoming , Laramie, Wyoming.
Mark
M
Guiberson
2 Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, The University of New Mexico , Albuquerque, New Mexico .
Barbara L
BL
Rodríguez
1 Division of Communication Disorders, University of Wyoming , Laramie, Wyoming.
Anna
A
Zajacova
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003120:Colorado; D018479:Early Intervention, Educational; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D017058:Mexican Americans; D019303:Multilingualism; D009516:New Mexico; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D049269:Videoconferencing; D014959:Wyoming
Spanish-speaking; classification accuracy; preschool; telepractice