Application value of different language assessment tools in language development assessment of 12-month-old high-risk infants / 中国儿童保健杂志

ABSTRACT

【Objective】 To explore the application value of different language assessment tools in the assessment of language development of 12-month-old high-risk infants, and to screen out simple and valid language assessment tools. 【Methods】 A total of 217 11- to 13-month-old high-risk infants who were followed up at the outpatient service for high-risk infants at the child health clinic of Guiyang Maternal and Child Health Hospital from March 2022 to May 2023 were selected as the study subjects. Their language was evaluated by Early Language Milestone Scale (ELMS), Putonghua Communicative Development Inventory (PCDI) and Ages and Stages Questionnaire-Third Edition (ASQ-3). With Gesell as the gold standard for the assessment of language, the area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, Youden index and Kappa value of the three tools were calculated. Spearman correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between the different language assessment scales. The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was used to evaluate the three tools. 【Results】 1)Among 217 high-risk infants, 78 preterm infants was the most (35.94%). The rate of delayed language development detected by Gesell, ELMS, PCDI-comprehension, PCDI-expression, ASQ-3 were 5.5%, 7.8%, 36.4%, 30.0% and 11.5%, respectively. 2)ASQ-3 had the strongest correlation with Gesell language region (rs=0.607, P<0.01) and it had the most AUC (AUC=0.812, P<0.05). The consistency between ASQ-3 and Gesell was moderate (Kappa=0.56, P<0.01). ASQ-3 had the highest sensitivity(91.7%), accuracy(93.1%), negative predictive value(99.5%) and Youden index(0.85), and ELMS had the highest specificity(94.6%). 3) Comprehensive evaluation of three tools by the TOPSIS indicated that ASQ-3 was the best, followed by ELMS and PCDI-comprehension was the worse. 【Conclusion】 Among the three assessment tools, ASQ-3 has the highest value in assessing the language development of 11- to 13-month-old high risk infants, and it may be necessary to expand the age range and establish a national norm of ELMS and PCDI in the future.