A comparison of preschool scores on the PPVT-R and the TELD

Abstract

It was suggested by Dunn and Dunn that the test should be useful "as an initial screening device in scanning for bright, low ability, and language impaired children who may need special attention." Since accuracy in screening is desired, information regarding the strength of the correlation between the PPVT-R and age equivalents from a comprehensive language measure was needed.The purpose of this study was to compare PPVT-R age equivalents with language ages from the Test of Early Language Development -TELD 2 (Hresko, Reid, and Hammill, 1981) for a preschool population. This study sought to find the strength of association between the PPVT-R age equivalents and the TELD language ages. The subjects used in the study were 54 preschool children ranging in age from 3-6 through 4-7 years.Normal children were selected for the study based on their chronological age, sex, and socioeconomic status -SES.Results indicated a significant and high correlation between the PPVT-R and TELD age equivalents and language ages, standard scores and language quotients, and also between percentiles. Results also showed that the mean TELD language age was consistently higher than the mean PPVT-R age equivalent for the overall sample and for each age, sex, and SES group.The mean PPVT-R age equivalents were consistently closer than the TELD mean language ages to chronological age. The PPVT-R appeared to be slightly more valid in measuring overall language performance (as defined by the TELD) with females than with males. When results from this study were compared with the results from a similar study (McLaughlin and Gullo, 1984), the correlation coefficient from the present study was found to be higher than the coefficient from the McLaughlin and Gullo study when standard scores and language quotients from the TELD and PPVT-R were correlated.