An Early Lexical Screening Tool for British English: Psychometric Properties and Clinical Utility

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Existing vocabulary assessments for 2-3 year olds are inadequate for capturing rapid lexical growth and emerging grammatical skills.
• There is a clinical need for reliable tools to assess early lexical development in toddlers.
• Rapid expansion of receptive and expressive vocabulary occurs in the second and third years of life.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish psychometric properties and validate the Words in Game (WinG) test for British English-speaking children aged 19-36 months.
• To examine gender differences in the WinG test's internal consistency, concurrent validity, and predictive gender invariance.
• To evaluate the WinG test's diagnostic accuracy and establish clinical cut-off scores for identifying language development risks.

Main Methods:

• The study involved 336 English-speaking children aged 19-36 months.
• A subset of 85 children were assessed using the Words in Game (WinG) test and the Preschool Language Scale (PLS-4) as a reference.
• Psychometric properties, concurrent validity, and diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity/specificity) were determined using PLS-4 scores.

Main Results:

• The WinG test demonstrated strong concurrent validity, with high correlations between WinG and PLS-4 scores.
• Girls outperformed boys in both vocabulary comprehension and production tasks.
• The WinG test showed fair sensitivity for comprehension and good sensitivity for production at the 15th percentile cut-off.

Conclusions:

• The Words in Game (WinG) test is a validated tool for speech and language therapists to screen early lexical difficulties in toddlers.
• The test offers a valuable starting point for identifying children at risk for language delays or disorders.
• Findings highlight developmental trends in toddler vocabulary and inform clinical practice for early language assessment.