Evaluating the CELF-5 Screening Test and Vineland-3 for Identifying Language Difficulties in Autism and Attention...

Area of Science:

• Neurodevelopmental disorders
• Clinical psychology
• Speech-language pathology

Background:

• Language difficulties are common in children with autism and ADHD.
• Standard language screening tools are widely used but lack validation for these populations.
• Accurate identification of language impairments is crucial for intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the screening accuracy of the CELF-5 Screener and Vineland-3 for language difficulties in children with autism and/or ADHD.
• To compare the performance of these tools against a gold standard measure.
• To assess the sensitivity and specificity of each tool for receptive and expressive language deficits.

Main Methods:

• The study included 132 children diagnosed with autism and/or ADHD.
• The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Fifth Edition Screening Test (CELF-5 Screener) and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Third Edition (Vineland-3) were administered.
• Screening tool performance was compared against clinician-administered CELF-5 composite scores.
• Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses and Youden's J statistic were used to evaluate accuracy.

Main Results:

• The CELF-5 Screener demonstrated low sensitivity (35.6% receptive, 37.9% expressive) but high specificity (95.3% receptive, 91.1% expressive).
• The Vineland-3 showed high sensitivity (93.3%) but low specificity (48%) for expressive language, and inadequate sensitivity (80.9%) and specificity (22.4%) for receptive language.
• Both tools may fail to identify a substantial number of children with co-occurring language difficulties.

Conclusions:

• The CELF-5 Screener and Vineland-3 exhibit limitations in accurately screening language difficulties in children with autism and/or ADHD.
• Clinicians must be aware of these tools' weaknesses when assessing neurodivergent children.
• Careful consideration of individual language profiles is essential, as normative trajectories may not apply.