Language comprehension in toddlers with significant developmental delays: An IRT approach

Abstract

Purpose: Language comprehension, or the ability to understand spoken language, is critical to a variety of child outcomes. Effective early intervention relies on valid, reliable language comprehension assessment. The purpose of this study was to explore language comprehension in a sample of toddlers with significant developmental delays associated with varied medical conditions.

Method: We investigated language comprehension in a sample of 112 toddlers by applying Item Response Theory (IRT) methods to two measures; one standardized and one flexible.

Results: Data from a standardized measure fit the unidimensional model, whereas the flexible measure did not. The overall pattern of results suggested that items related to early social/contextual comprehension are distinct from linguistic comprehension items.

Conclusion: Our findings inform clinical practice by underscoring the importance of comprehensive assessment of language comprehension and considering strengths and weaknesses across social/contextual and linguistic comprehension among toddlers with developmental delays.

Keywords: Developmental delays; Early intervention; Item response theory; Language comprehension; Toddlers.