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Development of a language screening instrument for Swedish 4-year-olds

Lavesson, Ann ; Lövdén, Martin LU and Hansson, Kristina LU orcid (2018) In International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 53(3). p.605-614
Abstract

Background: The Swedish Program for health surveillance of preschool children includes screening of language and communication abilities. One important language screening is carried out at age 4 years as part of a general screening conducted by health nurses at child health centres. The instruments presently in use for this screening mainly focus on expressive phonology. This may result in both over-referral of children with phonological difficulties and under-referral of children with language disorders (LDs), involving difficulties with vocabulary, grammar and/or language comprehension. Previous research has proposed non-word repetition as a clinical marker for LD. It has also been found that higher predictive power is achieved when... (More)

Background: The Swedish Program for health surveillance of preschool children includes screening of language and communication abilities. One important language screening is carried out at age 4 years as part of a general screening conducted by health nurses at child health centres. The instruments presently in use for this screening mainly focus on expressive phonology. This may result in both over-referral of children with phonological difficulties and under-referral of children with language disorders (LDs), involving difficulties with vocabulary, grammar and/or language comprehension. Previous research has proposed non-word repetition as a clinical marker for LD. It has also been found that higher predictive power is achieved when non-word repetition is combined with the assessment of lexical/semantic skills. Taking these findings into account, the construction of a language screening instrument may yield more adequate referrals to speech-language therapists (SLTs). Aims: To construct a new standardized language screening instrument for 4-year-olds and to test its properties. Methods & Procedures: An instrument was developed and revised after piloting. A population of 352 children was screened at the regular 4-year check-up by 11 health nurses. The final sample consisted of 328 children aged 46-53 months (23% multilingual). Children performing below a preliminary cut-off were referred to an SLT (n = 52). Five SLTs carried out an assessment on average within 5 weeks using a gold standard language test battery. Children who screened negatively were followed up with a parent questionnaire at age 5;6. Outcomes & Results: Thirty-one true-positives and 11 false-positives were identified after SLT assessment. A further six children were identified as false-negatives (two through referral to an SLT and four through parent questionnaire at age 5;6). A receiver-operating characteristics curve with a C statistic of .94 was calculated. Based on optimal cut-off, the sensitivity of the screening instrument was found to be .84, and specificity was .96. Multilingual children performed similar to monolingual children; boys performed significantly lower than girls; and children with a family history of language-related problems performed lower than those without. Interrater reliability was high, as was Cronbach's alpha. Conclusions & Implications: The screening instrument seems sufficiently valid for its purpose to identify children who need further assessment by an SLT. A follow-up study including SLT assessment for all children to check for false-negatives would be interesting in future, as would studies comparing results from the 4-year screening with those from earlier screens.

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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Child health surveillance, Language disorder, Language screening, Specificity
in
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders
volume
53
issue
3
pages
605 - 614
publisher
Taylor & Francis
external identifiers
  • scopus:85041644258
  • pmid:29411470
ISSN
1368-2822
DOI
10.1111/1460-6984.12374
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
bc8ec5f8-f07d-4024-8d54-cfc45656be98
date added to LUP
2018-02-21 13:36:45
date last changed
2024-06-24 10:14:00
@article{bc8ec5f8-f07d-4024-8d54-cfc45656be98,
  abstract     = {{<p>Background: The Swedish Program for health surveillance of preschool children includes screening of language and communication abilities. One important language screening is carried out at age 4 years as part of a general screening conducted by health nurses at child health centres. The instruments presently in use for this screening mainly focus on expressive phonology. This may result in both over-referral of children with phonological difficulties and under-referral of children with language disorders (LDs), involving difficulties with vocabulary, grammar and/or language comprehension. Previous research has proposed non-word repetition as a clinical marker for LD. It has also been found that higher predictive power is achieved when non-word repetition is combined with the assessment of lexical/semantic skills. Taking these findings into account, the construction of a language screening instrument may yield more adequate referrals to speech-language therapists (SLTs). Aims: To construct a new standardized language screening instrument for 4-year-olds and to test its properties. Methods &amp; Procedures: An instrument was developed and revised after piloting. A population of 352 children was screened at the regular 4-year check-up by 11 health nurses. The final sample consisted of 328 children aged 46-53 months (23% multilingual). Children performing below a preliminary cut-off were referred to an SLT (n = 52). Five SLTs carried out an assessment on average within 5 weeks using a gold standard language test battery. Children who screened negatively were followed up with a parent questionnaire at age 5;6. Outcomes &amp; Results: Thirty-one true-positives and 11 false-positives were identified after SLT assessment. A further six children were identified as false-negatives (two through referral to an SLT and four through parent questionnaire at age 5;6). A receiver-operating characteristics curve with a C statistic of .94 was calculated. Based on optimal cut-off, the sensitivity of the screening instrument was found to be .84, and specificity was .96. Multilingual children performed similar to monolingual children; boys performed significantly lower than girls; and children with a family history of language-related problems performed lower than those without. Interrater reliability was high, as was Cronbach's alpha. Conclusions &amp; Implications: The screening instrument seems sufficiently valid for its purpose to identify children who need further assessment by an SLT. A follow-up study including SLT assessment for all children to check for false-negatives would be interesting in future, as would studies comparing results from the 4-year screening with those from earlier screens.</p>}},
  author       = {{Lavesson, Ann and Lövdén, Martin and Hansson, Kristina}},
  issn         = {{1368-2822}},
  keywords     = {{Child health surveillance; Language disorder; Language screening; Specificity}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{02}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{605--614}},
  publisher    = {{Taylor & Francis}},
  series       = {{International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders}},
  title        = {{Development of a language screening instrument for Swedish 4-year-olds}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12374}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/1460-6984.12374}},
  volume       = {{53}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}