Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind November 13, 2013 Assessments for Children Birth to 3: Part 2 MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind November 13, 2013

Presenter Allison Sedey, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, CCC-A University of Colorado-Boulder Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind Allison.Sedey@colorado.edu

Today’s Topics Description of assessment Instructions for administration Opportunity for families with children who are d/hoh to participate in NECAP Interpretation and use of results

Age level 8 to 18 months Older children with language delay Girls with < 70 words in productive vocabulary Boys with < 50 words in productive vocabulary

Areas assessed Comprehension of phrases Vocabulary comprehension Expressive vocabulary (396 words) Communicative gestures Symbolic gestures/pretend play

Published version Available from Brookes Publishing Co. Available in English or Spanish Separate norms for each language

Adapted version for d/hoh Adapted at the University of Colorado- Boulder “Sign” column added Can count words spoken, signed, and produced in both speech and sign Available in English or Spanish

Instructions to Parents Can rely only on instructions on form Can provide supplemental instructions Verbally In writing

Discussing Inconsistencies Opportunity to learn something you may have been unaware of Opportunity to improve parents’ observational skills of child’s language “I see you marked that Anna says ‘now’. Can you give me an example of a situation when she said/signed that word?”

Scoring If child’s CA is within age range of the test (8 to 18 months) Obtain percentile scores If child’s CA is >18 months Obtain age scores Look for your child’s raw score on the 50th %ile line See age associated with that score

NECAP National Early Childhood Assessment Project Assisting interested states in administering two developmental assessments Minnesota Child Development Inventory MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory

NECAP National Early Childhood Assessment Project For children who are deaf or hard of hearing Assessments scored by CU-Boulder Report of child’s results sent to interventionist and/or family Annual accountability report sent to participating state/agency

NECAP Allison.Sedey@colorado.edu **State- or agency-level administrators interested in participating in NECAP can contact: Allison.Sedey@colorado.edu

Interpreting Results Compare subscale scores Typically developing children show approximately equivalent scores across all sections

Interpreting Results Comprehension vs. production If delays exist in both, more significant problem than if only production delays

Interpreting Results Gestures vs. linguistic items Gestures often indication of more general cognitive ability Cognitive red flag if gesture scores are substantially below CA Cognition should predict linguistic ability Language red flag if gesture scores significantly exceed linguistic scores

Interpreting “often”, “sometimes”, “not yet” items Using the tables in the manual Compare child’s status with percentage of age-mates who received an “often” or “sometimes” response

Using Results to Guide Intervention Evaluate communication approach being used (# of words signed vs. spoken) Provide parent education significance of vocabulary development for future academic success Importance of having more than labels

Using Results to Guide Intervention Obtain ratio of nouns to “other” words Should be between .3 and .6 That is, for every 10 nouns a child produces, he/she typically produces between 3 and 6 other types of words Deaf/hoh children are often “noun heavy” Focus on vocabulary in semantic categories where child’s scores are low

Using Results to Guide Intervention To see which words are typically known at each age level go to: www.sci.sdsu.edu/cdi/lexical_e.htm Lists the percentage of children comprehending or producing each individual word at each age Can search database by age level, semantic category, specific words, or word frequency