Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov-Dec:100:106276.
doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2022.106276. Epub 2022 Oct 28.

Classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener for preschool children with and without developmental language disorder

Amy Pace  1 , Maura Curran  2 , Amanda Owen Van Horne  3 , Jill de Villiers  4 , Aquiles Iglesias  3 , Roberta Michnick Golinkoff  3 , Mary S Wilson  5 , Kathy Hirsh-Pasek  6
Affiliations

Classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener for preschool children with and without developmental language disorder

Amy Pace et al. J Commun Disord. 2022 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

Introduction: This research examined the classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener (QUILS) for identifying preschool-aged children (3;0 to 6;9) with developmental language disorder (DLD). We present data from two independent samples that varied in prevalence and diagnostic reference standard.

Methods: Study 1 included a clinical sample of children (54 with DLD; 13 without) who completed the QUILS and a standardized assessment of expressive grammar (Syntax subtest from the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Norm Referenced; Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool 2nd Edition; or Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-3 rd Edition). Study 2 included a community sample of children (25 with DLD; 101 without) who completed the QUILS and the Auditory Comprehension subtest of the Preschool Language Scales-5th Edition (PLS-5; Zimmerman et al., 2011). Discriminant analyses were conducted to compare classification accuracy (i.e., sensitivity and specificity) using the normreferenced cut score (< 25th percentile) with empirically derived cut scores.

Results: In Study 1, the QUILS led to low fail rates (i.e., high specificity) in children without impairment and statistically significant group differences as a function of children's clinical status; however, only 65% of children with DLD were accurately identified using the norm-referenced cutoff. In Study 2, 76% of children with DLD were accurately identified at the 25th percentile cutoff and accuracy improved to 84% when an empirically derived cutoff (<32nd percentile) was applied.

Conclusions: Findings support the clinical application of the QUILS as a component of the screening process for identifying the presence or absence of DLD in community samples of preschool-aged children.

Keywords: Developmental language disorder; Diagnostic Accuracy; Language assessment; Preschool children; Quick interactive language screener.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources