Screening for language disorders in early age: overview and an introduction of the questionnaire SDDS 16–42

Czech version

Authors: F. Smolík ¹; I. Bytešníková ²
Authors‘ workplace: Psychologický ústav AV ČR, Oddělení kognitivní psychologie, Praha ¹; Pedagogická fakulta MU, Katedra speciální a inkluzivní pedagogiky, Brno ²
Published in: Čes-slov Pediat 2020; 75 (8): 484-489.
Category: Review

Overview

The paper provides a short overview of the issues related to early identification of language development disorders, and introduces the available tools for early assessment of language development in the Czech language. Language development is a prerequisite of important social and cognitive skills, and language development disorders thus result in a significant developmental risk. Late language emergence in early age marks increased risk of suffering from developmental language disorder. Some children catch up on their delayed development and end up within the normal range of language skills, but even these children have lower language skills compared to those without a history of early language delay. It is thus desirable to identify the deviations and delays of language development as early as possible. Parent-report methods are practically useful for this purpose because the parents, unlike pediatricians and other healthcare specialists, have continual access to the child and are not influenced by situational factors such as shyness, stress or health status.

The paper then introduces the original method Short Questiomnaire of Child Vocabulary (SDDS, Stučný dotazník dětského slovníku) 16–42, which serves for a screening evaluation of vocabulary skills in children from 16 to 42 months of age. The results can be used to decide whether a child should be referred for detailed examination by a speech-language pathologist and possibly other specialists.

Keywords:

language development – screening – late language emergence – developmental language disorder

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