Greenwood Charles R, Walker Dale, Buzhardt Jay, J Howard Waylon, McCune Luke, Anderson Rawni
University of Kansas.
Early Child Res Q. 2013 Jul 1;28(3):540-554. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.02.006.
Progress monitoring measurement is increasingly needed in early childhood to inform practitioners when an intervention change is needed and as a tool for accomplishing individualization and improving results for individual children. The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) is such a measure for infants and toddlers, 6 to 42 months of age. A greater understanding of the ECI key skills (i.e., gestures, vocalizations, single- and multiple-word utterances) could lead to further improvements in the sensitivity and utility of the decisions made compared to ECIs composite total communication score. Thus, we examined the pattern of growth within and between the ECI's four foundational skills in a large sample of children served in Early Head Start. Results confirmed a unique pattern of growth and change within each skill trajectory in terms of (a) age at skill onset and (b) peaks in each trajectory defining an inflection point or change from acceleration to deceleration. Analyses using these inflection points as intercepts with before and after trajectory slopes in a test of an adjacent skills temporal ordering growth model indicated good fit. Implications of a continuum of foundational ECI skills to future validation and decision making utility of the measure are discussed.
在幼儿期,进展监测测量越来越有必要,以便在需要进行干预调整时告知从业者,并作为实现个性化以及提高个别儿童干预效果的一种工具。早期沟通指标(ECI)就是针对6至42个月大的婴幼儿的这样一种测量工具。与ECI的综合总沟通得分相比,更深入地了解ECI的关键技能(即手势、发声、单字和多字话语)可能会进一步提高所做决策的敏感性和实用性。因此,我们在参与早期开端计划的大量儿童样本中,研究了ECI四项基础技能内部以及之间的发展模式。结果证实,在每个技能轨迹中,在(a)技能开始的年龄和(b)每个轨迹中的峰值(定义了一个拐点或从加速到减速的变化)方面,都有独特的发展和变化模式。在相邻技能时间顺序发展模型的测试中,使用这些拐点作为截距,并结合轨迹前后斜率进行分析,结果显示拟合良好。本文讨论了ECI基础技能连续体对该测量工具未来验证和决策效用的影响。