ERIC Number: EJ1458753
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jan
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1368-2822
EISSN: EISSN-1460-6984
Available Date: N/A
Gesture Screening in Young Infants: Highly Sensitive to Risk Factors for Communication Delay
Katie Alcock; Kerstin Meints; Caroline Rowland
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, v60 n1 e13150 2025
Introduction: Children's early language and communication skills are efficiently measured using parent report, for example, communicative development inventories (CDIs). These have scalable potential to determine risk of later language delay, and associations between delay and risk factors such as prematurity and poverty. However, there may be measurement difficulties in parent reports, including anomalous directions of association between child age/socioeconomic status and reported language. Findings vary on whether parents may report older infants as having smaller vocabularies than younger infants, for example. Methods: We analysed data from the UK Communicative Development Inventory (Words and Gestures); UK-CDI (W&G) to determine whether anomalous associations would be replicated in this population, and/or with gesture. In total 1204 families of children aged 8-18 months (598 girls, matched to UK population for income, parental education and ethnicity as far as possible) completed Vocabulary and Gesture scales of the UK-CDI (W&G). Results: Overall scores on the Gesture scale showed more significant relationships with biological risk factors including prematurity than did Vocabulary scores. Gesture also showed more straightforward relationships with social risk factors including income. Relationships between vocabulary and social risk factors were less straightforward; some at-risk groups reported higher vocabulary scores than other groups. Discussion: We conclude that vocabulary report may be less accurate than gesture for this age. Parents have greater knowledge of language than gesture milestones, hence may report expectations for vocabulary, not observed vocabulary. We also conclude that gesture should be included in early language scales partly because of its greater, more straightforward association with many risk factors for language delay.
Descriptors: Child Language, Language Skills, Communication Skills, Measures (Individuals), Foreign Countries, Nonverbal Communication, Screening Tests, Infants, Risk, Communication Problems, Developmental Delays, Vocabulary, Language Impairments
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www-wiley-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/853687/
Author Affiliations: N/A