Investigating the validity of the Clinical Linguistic Auditory Milestone Scale

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the validity of the Clinical Linguistic Auditory Milestone Scale (CLAMS) as a screening test to help physicians detect delays in language development. Language delays in children are often not diagnosed until about 3 years of age because (1) parents may not be aware of what constitutes normal language development, (2) diagnosis of a language problem is difficult for physicians to make because they see the child for brief periods of time, (3) there is a wide range of what constitutes normal language so professionals are reluctant to classify a child as delayed without thorough testing. The hypothesis for this investigation was that children who have language delays can be identified quickly and easily through the administration of the CLAMS. Subjects included 99 children between the ages of 1 and 3 years. The procedure had 3 parts: (1) parents completed a form consisting of questions such as parent occupation, number of children in the family, birth history, etc., (2) the CLAMS, a parent report that can be given while the child is seen by the physician, was administered, (3) the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development (SICD), was administered to assess receptive and expressive language. The purpose for administering the SICD was to obtain a more in-depth picture of the child's ability to comprehend and use language, thereby providing data to determine the validity of the CLAMS as a screening device. Results indicated that the CLAMS is a valid instrument for identifying language delayed children.