Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Parma, Italy, Italy.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2012 Sep-Oct;47(5):589-602. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-6984.2012.00168.x. Epub 2012 Jul 25.
Understanding lexical abilities in infants and toddlers is important, yet no single tool can be used.
To perform a validation of a new tool (known as the Picture Naming Game, or 'PiNG') for assessing lexical comprehension and production in toddlers and to obtain developmental trends for Italian children.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: PiNG consists of four subtests: Noun Comprehension (NC), Noun Production (NP), Predicate Comprehension (PC) and Predicate Production (PP), each containing 20 lexical targets. It was administered to 388 children with typical development aged 19-37 months. The short form of the Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI), previously completed by parents of participants, was used for the validation of PiNG.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: For the validation study, reliability, internal consistency and concurrent validity were analysed. The reliability was optimal for NC, NP and PP, and satisfactory for PC. Split-half analysis showed a fair internal consistency for all of the subtests. Concurrent validity was verified through the correlation with MB-CDI using Pearson's correlation coefficient, which was significant even after having controlled for age. To describe the developmental trends, data are provided for 1-month age intervals. The comprehension subtests showed a rapid increase at younger ages, with children reaching a plateau slightly earlier for the NC (at 30 months versus 33 months for the PC). The increase in the production subtests was gradual; PP appeared to be the most difficult subtest, administrable starting at the age of 24 months. When we analysed, as potential confounders for developmental trends, gender, parents' educational level, and the way in which the subtests were administered, no differences were found, except for a better performance for girls in the NP subtest.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Overall, the results suggest that PiNG is suitable for children in the age range considered to evaluate language abilities. It can be used together with other tools with clinical and theoretical objectives also to describe lexical abilities in atypical populations, such as children with cognitive and/or language impairment, as well as with late-talking children. Finally, the four subtests can be administered separately or combined, which provides flexibility in clinical use, in that the individual child's linguistic and/or cognitive characteristics and level can be taken into consideration.
了解婴幼儿的词汇能力很重要，但没有单一的工具可以做到这一点。
对一种新工具（称为图片命名游戏，或“PiNG”）进行验证，以评估幼儿的词汇理解和表达能力，并获得意大利儿童的发展趋势。
PiNG 由四个子测试组成：名词理解（NC）、名词产生（NP）、谓语理解（PC）和谓语产生（PP），每个子测试包含 20 个词汇目标。它被用于 388 名年龄在 19-37 个月之间的发育正常的儿童。父母之前为参与者完成的意大利版麦克阿瑟-贝茨交际发展量表（MB-CDI）的简短形式用于 PiNG 的验证。
对于验证研究，分析了可靠性、内部一致性和同时效度。NC、NP 和 PP 的可靠性最佳，PC 的可靠性令人满意。分半分析显示所有子测试的内部一致性都不错。通过与 MB-CDI 用 Pearson 相关系数进行相关性验证，即使在控制了年龄之后，这种相关性仍然显著。为了描述发展趋势，提供了 1 个月年龄间隔的数据。理解子测试在年幼时迅速增加，NC 达到平台期的年龄稍早（30 个月对 PC 为 33 个月）。产生子测试的增加是渐进的；PP 似乎是最难的子测试，从 24 个月开始可以进行测试。当我们分析性别、父母教育水平以及子测试的施测方式等潜在的发展趋势混杂因素时，除了 NP 子测试中女孩的表现更好之外，没有发现差异。
总的来说，结果表明 PiNG 适合用于评估语言能力的年龄范围内的儿童。它可以与具有临床和理论目标的其他工具一起使用，也可以用于描述认知和/或语言障碍等非典型人群以及说话晚的儿童的词汇能力。最后，四个子测试可以单独或组合使用，这在临床应用中提供了灵活性，可以考虑到个体儿童的语言和/或认知特点和水平。
