Parental Reports of Preschoolers' Lexical and Syntactic Development: Validation of the CDI-III for European Portuguese

Abstract

This study presents the validation analysis of the European Portuguese version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory III (CDI-III-PT). The CDI-III-PT is a parental report measure allowing researchers to assess expressive vocabulary and the syntactic abilities of children aged 2;6–4;0. In this study, we present a version comprising a lexical subscale which follows the Swedish adaptation and an original syntactic subscale allowing us to include language-specific structures. The reports of 739 children were collected; in addition, a standardized measure of language was also administered to a sub-sample of these children and the reports of preschool teachers were collected for another sub-sample. The results indicate a high internal consistency of the lexical and syntactic subscales. As for sociodemographic variables often found to be predictors of language development, as measured by this type of instrument, the results indicate that age and maternal education are significant predictors of the scores, and that first-born children attain higher scores in vocabulary than later born children, but no significant gender differences were found. The scores of the CDI-III-PT are positively correlated with the ones obtained in the standardized language measure, thus supporting their validity. A high agreement between the reports of parents and teachers was also found. These findings indicate that the CDI-III-PT has adequate psychometric properties and that it can be a useful tool for research and clinical practice. The age-based norms that are now provided can be used to evaluate whether a child is performing poorly compared to their peers.

Development and norming of the Hungarian CDI‐III: A screening tool for language delay

“…Odeskog and Stenberg (2015) tested the validity of the Swedish form in a sample of 41 typically developing children aged 3;0-3;11 and found low correlations of the Vocabulary section with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (r = 0.324) and the Boston Naming Test (r = 0.368). Cadime et al (2021) reported that the Vocabulary total score and the Syntax score of the European Portuguese CDI-III showed moderate correlations with the language score of the Griffiths Mental Development Scales (r = 0.486* and r = 0.445*, respectively) in a small sample of 23 typically developing children aged 30-48 months.…”

“…Items in the vocabulary section have been revised and sections for measuring metalinguistic awareness and pronunciation accuracy have been added (Eriksson, 2017 ). The Swedish form served as the basis of the recent Estonian adaptation put forward by Tulviste and Schults ( 2020 ) and the structure of the Swedish CDI‐III vocabulary section were also used in the recent development of the CDI‐III for European Portuguese along with carefully adapted sections for syntax for each language based on earlier CDI‐WS forms and spontaneous language samples (Cadime et al., 2021 ). Studies of validity and classification accuracy have also been conducted and published for some of the adaptations with largely successful results.…”

“…Evidence for validity is available for the Spanish INV‐III (Guiberson & Rodríguez, 2010 ), the Swedish SCDI‐III (Odeskog & Stenberg, 2015 ), the Estonian form ECDI‐III (Tulviste and Schults ( 2020 ) and the European Portuguese CDI‐III (Cadime et al., 2021 ). The validity of the Swedish and Portuguese CDI‐III instruments has been studied in typically developing children while the studies on the Spanish and Estonian forms also included groups of children with language difficulties.…”

“…Cadime et al. ( 2021 ) reported that the Vocabulary total score and the Syntax score of the European Portuguese CDI‐III showed moderate correlations with the language score of the Griffiths Mental Development Scales ( r = 0.486* and r = 0.445*, respectively) in a small sample of 23 typically developing children aged 30–48 months.…”

Aquisição da sintaxe do português europeu como língua materna: ponto da situação

“…Há já muita investigação que mostra que variáveis sociodemográficas e socioeconómicas, incluindo o nível de instrução dos pais, e da mãe em particular, são determinantes no desenvolvimento do vocabulário da criança a partir dos 2 anos de idade: crianças de meios socioeconómicos mais favorecidos e cujas mães têm níveis altos de escolarização possuem um vocabulário mais vasto (Cadime et al, 2018). A importância destas variáveis no desenvolvimento sintático não é tão clara, mas há já investigação que mostra que o desenvolvimento sintático também é afetado por estas variáveis: crianças cujas mães têm um nível de instrução mais alto produzem estruturas sintáticas mais complexas e mais diversificadas (Cadime et al, 2021). Há, ainda assim, muitas questões que permanecem em aberto no que diz respeito ao papel do input no desenvolvimento sintático.…”