Developed by O\u2019Neill at the University of Waterloo, the LUI assesses the language of children 18 to 47 months old. In answering a series of questions, parents reveal how their children use language in various situations, including interacting with others, playing, and communicating about the world around them.<\/strong> Children\u2019s scores can then be compared to those of hundreds of other children the same age from across Canada. In fact, the test is currently used in eight provinces in Canada, 30 states in the U.S.,\u00a0 as well as in the U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n When Pesco and O\u2019Neill began their study, O\u2019Neill had already established that the LUI can accurately assess a child\u2019s current language ability, but the measure\u2019s relative novelty meant that its ability to accurately predict how toddlers would fare as they blossomed into youngsters could not be assessed until now.<\/p>\n Pesco, who is also a certified speech-language pathologist, was eager to see if the LUI results would hold down the line and perhaps result in fewer false positives than other measures of young children\u2019s language.<\/p>\n \u201cFalse positives,\u201d Pesco explains, \u201cmeans that a measure identifies a child as having a language delay or problem when, in fact, he or she does not. That\u2019s a problem, since services for children with true delays are already overtaxed and have long waiting lists. False positives can also lead parents to worry unnecessarily and to incur expenses for private services, and can cause stress for children. At the same time, we don\u2019t want to miss children who have and may continue to have difficulties.\u201d<\/p>\n Finding a measure that can accurately identify children with language issues and that can predict who will continue to have difficulties later in childhood has therefore become a common goal for researchers, speech pathologists, pediatricians and parents who want to ensure that their kids develop strong language skills.<\/p>\n In response to this challenge, Pesco and O\u2019Neill analyzed data from 348 five- to six-year-olds whose parents had completed the LUI when their child was a toddler or preschooler. The two researchers examined the relationship between the children\u2019s scores on the LUI and on later language measures.<\/p>\n The results were promising. Children who had scored low on the LUI as toddlers were far more likely to have low scores on language measures when they hit five or six. These same children were also likely to be identified with a language impairment by the time they hit school age.<\/p>\n According to the study\u2019s findings, therefore, the LUI can both identify kids who are struggling with language now and provide insight into their future facility with words<\/strong>. Early identification of language delays permits parents to seek help before problems set in<\/strong>, potentially resulting in a brighter future for those children whose language skills need a boost.<\/p>\n Partners in research:<\/strong> This study was made possible by a grant to O\u2019Neill and Pesco from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Concordia University press release: We depend on a barrage of standardized tests to assess everything from aptitude to intelligence. But do they provide an accurate forecast when it… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[45,13,160,74,73,25,19,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1637,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions\/1637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/ChildReading.jpg\" "\\"reading\\"")
We depend on a barrage of standardized tests to assess everything from aptitude to intelligence. But do they provide an accurate forecast when it comes to something as complex as language? A study by Diane Pesco, an assistant professor in Concordia\u2019s Department of Education, and co-author Daniela O\u2019Neill, published earlier this year in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research<\/em>, shows that the Language Use Inventory (LUI)<\/strong> does.<\/p>\n