Early Language Milestone Scale and language screening of young children

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Language Development
• Developmental Pediatrics
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Early identification of language disorders is crucial for intervention.
• The Early Language Milestone Scale (ELM) is a tool used for screening language skills.
• Validating screening tools against gold standards is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the Early Language Milestone Scale (ELM) for language screening in children from birth to 36 months.
• To assess the agreement between the ELM and a gold standard diagnostic tool, the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development (SICD).

Main Methods:

• A total of 657 children aged 0-36 months were screened using the ELM.
• Children who failed the ELM underwent further assessment with the SICD.
• Agreement between ELM and SICD was analyzed across different age groups (0-12, 13-24, 25-36 months).

Main Results:

• An overall ELM failure rate of 8% was observed.
• Poor agreement was found between ELM and SICD for children aged 12 months and younger.
• Moderately good agreement was observed for the 13-24 month group with a rescreen ELM.
• Excellent agreement was found for the 25-36 month group with a rescreen ELM, correctly classifying 79% and 89% respectively.

Conclusions:

• The ELM demonstrates increasing reliability for language screening in children as they approach 3 years of age.
• The ELM may be a useful screening tool for toddlers (13-36 months) when validated with a rescreen.
• Further refinement or alternative tools may be needed for reliable language screening in infants under 12 months.