A Sentence Repetition Task in Spanish language: a valid tool for early language assessment

Purpose Sentence Repetition Tasks (SRT) have been widely used to assess early language abilities in different languages and populations. In addition, it has been proved that performance in SRTs serve as a clinical marker to detect language difficulties. However, most of the research has been conduct...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Bravo Cerro, Natalia, Lázaro López Villaseñor, Miguel, Mariscal Altares, Sonia, Rujas Pascual, Irene
Format: article
Publication Date:2023
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Repository:e-spacio. Repositorio Institucional de la UNED
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:e-spacio.uned.es:20.500.14468/24516
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/24516
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:61 Psicología::6102 Psicología del niño y del adolescente::6102.01 Psicología evolutiva
61 Psicología::6104 Psicopedagogía
61 Psicología::6102 Psicología del niño y del adolescente::6102.05 Patología del lenguaje
developmental language disorder
early language assessment
grammatical development
sentence repetition
specific language impairment
nonword repetition task
Description
Summary:Purpose Sentence Repetition Tasks (SRT) have been widely used to assess early language abilities in different languages and populations. In addition, it has been proved that performance in SRTs serve as a clinical marker to detect language difficulties. However, most of the research has been conducted in English language and with children older than 4 years of age. Despite this scarcity, [1] developed a SRT for monolingual Spanish-speaking children between 2 and 4 years of age. Initial findings showed that it is a useful tool for discriminating children with different linguistic levels. In addition, the task showed concurrent validity with a nonword repetition task. In the current study we want to explore the predictive validity of this task. Methods We conducted a longitudinal study including 20 monolingual Spanish-Speaking children who were tested twice, at 33 months of age and six months later. In addition to the SRT, participants completed a nonword repetition task [2] and the Spanish version of the Merrill-Palmer-R Developmental Scales [3]. Results showed strong and positive relationships between the different tests when first assessed. We also found strong and predictive relationships between the SRT at time 1 and SRT and the Merrill-Palmer-R at time 2. Conclusion We conclude that the SRT developed [1] is a valid tool for examining early language abilities and its changes over time.