Purpose: Many children with communication disorders (CDs) experience lengthy gaps between parental reporting of concerns and formal identification by professionals. This means that children with CDs are denied access to early interventions that may help support the development of communication skills and prevent possible negative sequelae associated with long-term outcomes. This may be due, in part, to the lack of assessment instruments available for children younger than 3 years of age. This study therefore reports on promising preliminary data from a novel set of valid dynamic assessment (DA) measures designed for infants. Method: We recruited 53 low-risk children and two groups of children considered to be at high risk for CDs ( n = 17, social high risk, and n = 22, language high risk) due to family members with language and social communication difficulties. The children were between 1 and 2 years of age and were assessed using a battery of five DA tasks related to receptive vocabulary, motor imitation, response to joint attention, turn taking, and social requesting. A set of standardized measures were also used. Results: The DA tasks showed high levels of interrater reliability and relationships with age across a cross-sectional sample of children from the low-risk group. Three tasks showed moderate to strong correlations with standardized measures taken at the same age, with particularly strong correlations between the DA of receptive vocabulary and other receptive language measures. The DA of receptive vocabulary was also the only task to discriminate between the three risk groups, with the social high risk group scoring lower. Conclusions: These results provide preliminary information about early DA tasks, forming the basis for further research into their utility. DA tasks might eventually facilitate the development of new methods for detecting CDs in very young children, allowing earlier intervention and support.

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Finding early predictors of later language skills and difficulties is fraught with challenges because of the wide developmental variation in language. Gasparini et al. (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2023) aimed to address this issue by applying machine learning methods to parent reports taken from a large longitudinal database (Early Language in Victoria Study). Using this approach, they identify two short, straightforward item sets, taken at 24 and 36 months, that can adequately predict language difficulties when children are 11 years of age. Their work represents an exciting step towards earlier recognition and support for children with Developmental Language Disorder. This commentary highlights the advantages and challenges of identifying early predictors of language in this way, and discusses future directions that can build on this important contribution.

BackgroundVery young children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often show poorer language development. Whilst there have been attempts to provide early intervention programmes, these sometimes miss the most disadvantaged groups.AimsThis report presents preliminary feasibility and effectiveness data for a novel language intervention designed for parents of toddlers in the United Kingdom.Methods and ProceduresIn total, 43 UK families of 2–4‐year‐olds were recruited to the study, half of whom completed an 8‐week course (Tots Talking) focussed on parent interaction, and half of whom acted as wait‐list controls.Results and OutcomesResults suggest that such programmes are feasible for families with 86% staying in the intervention. In addition, greater changes in underlying communication skills such as joint attention and gesture were evident compared to wait‐list controls.Conclusions and ImplicationsWe conclude that pre‐verbal skills may be more important to measure as initial outcomes than language or vocabulary change in this population.What This Paper AddsWhat is already known on the subjectChildren from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are at higher risk of communication difficulties and there is a need for community intervention programmes for very young children.What this study addsThis study suggests that such programmes can be feasible and effective, but that very early/basic communicative skills (such as joint attention) may be boosted first rather than language or vocabulary.What are the clinical implications of this work?Children's centres and other community services could feasibly run short parent facing courses emphasising contingent communication in low SES families and other diverse groups. These may be more successful run with younger preschoolers. Joint attention may be a better focus of intervention before expecting vocabulary or language change. Community health professionals may find this information useful in referring and supporting families in need.