Latvian Adaptation of McArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories

Abstract

The article discusses the methodology and the preliminary results of the research project entitled “Latvian language in Monolingual and Bilingual Acquisition: tools, theories and applications” (LAMBA). The project involves 25 researchers – linguists, educators, psychologists – from five institutions in Latvia and Norway, and focuses on phonological, lexical and morphosyntactic acquisition of Latvian as a native language in monolingual and bilingual settings. One of the main goals of the project is to develop a set of norm-referenced language assessment tools that would allow for accurate and time-efficient evaluation of language development in pre-school children.The article will focus specifically on the Latvian adaptation of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories – a parental report tool that assesses the development of receptive and productive vocabulary, and certain aspects of grammar. Two CDI forms were adapted in the project: CDI Words and Gestures designed for use with children between 8 and 16 months of age, and CDI Words and Sentences designed for 16- to 36-month old children. Each CDI form contains extensive and language-specific checklists of lexical items, communicative gestures and grammatical constructions.

Exploring the Consistency Between Teachers' and Parents' Ratings of Children's Language Skills

“…Results showed that parents consistently rated their children's expressive and receptive language skills higher than teachers, particularly in 3-and 5-year-old children, with these differences being statistically significant. This variation in ratings between parents and teachers may be attributed to their differing experiences; teachers compare a child's language proficiency against a broad range of peers, whereas parents might not have such extensive comparative opportunities and may overestimate their children's abilities (Hauerwas & Stone, 2000;Vulane, Taurina, Zirina, 2016).…”

“…For instance, the Latvian language adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories for children aged 8-16 and 16-36 months encountered low parental response rates (8%), attributed to outreach challenges and unequal distribution of parental education levels (Urek et al, 2019). Prior research by Vulane et al indicated that parents' assessments could be overly optimistic or pessimistic, or even superficial, impacting the accuracy of the information provided (Vulane, Taurina, Zirina, 2016).…”