title: Research to Establish the Validity, Reliability, and Clinical Utility of a Comprehensive Language Assessment of Mandarin.
abstract: With no existing gold standard for comparison, challenges arise for establishing the validity of a new standardized Mandarin language assessment normed in mainland China.
  
  
  
  A new assessment, Diagnostic Receptive and Expressive Assessment of Mandarin (DREAM), was normed with a stratified sample of 969 children ages 2;6 (years;months) to 7;11 in multiple urban and nonurban regions in northern and southern China. In this study of 230 children, the sensitivity and specificity of DREAM were examined against an a priori judgment of disorders. External validity was assessed using 2 indices of language production for different age groups.
  
  
  
  External validity was assessed against spontaneous language indices (correlation range: r = .6-.7; all ps < .01) and narrative indices (overall: r = .45, p < .01). Sensitivity (.73) and specificity (.82) of DREAM are moderate to good using a priori judgment as the standard. The values improved to .95 and .82 when spontaneous language and narratives were added to a priori judgment to define typicality. Divergent validity was moderate with nonlinguistic indices.
  
  
  
  DREAM holds promise as a diagnostic test of Mandarin language impairment for children aged 2;6 to 7;11.
authors.affiliation: Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Texas at DallasBethel Hearing and Speaking Training Center, Dallas, TX.
authors.forename: Xueman Lucy
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Bethel Hearing and Speaking Training Center, Dallas, TXSmith College, Northampton, MA.
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Villiers
authors.affiliation: Bethel Hearing and Speaking Training Center, Dallas, TXInstitute of Linguistics, Tianjin Normal University, China.
authors.forename: Chunyan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.affiliation: Bethel Hearing and Speaking Training Center, Dallas, TX.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rolfhus
authors.affiliation: Bethel Hearing and Speaking Training Center, Dallas, TX.
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hutchings
authors.affiliation: Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Texas at DallasBethel Hearing and Speaking Training Center, Dallas, TX.
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Shanghai Children's Medical Center Affiliated to Medical School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Shanghai Children's Medical Center Affiliated to Medical School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.
authors.forename: Yi Wen
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity