Convergent validity of functional communication tools and spoken language comprehension assessment in children with cerebral palsy.
Emma Vaillant, Kim J Oostrom, Heleen Beckerman and 3 others
PMID 35637603WHAT IT FOUND
Three functional communication tools agreed strongly with each other in children with cerebral palsy, from toddlers to school age.
Spoken language comprehension also tracked closely with functional communication in children aged 4 and older, but less so in toddlers.
Key findings
01Correlations between the three functional communication tools ranged from 0.660 to 0.906 across all developmental stages, confirming good convergent validity.
02Correlations between functional communication tools and spoken language comprehension were moderate in toddlers (0.351–0.591) but strong in preschool (0.781–0.897) and schoolchildren (0.635–0.659).
03Children with average spoken language comprehension were mostly classified at CFCS levels I and II, while those with below average comprehension were mostly at levels III, IV or V.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study excluded children with severe hearing, vision or cerebral visual impairment, so the findings do not apply to those groups. Sample sizes in the preschool and school-age groups were smaller than the 50 participants recommended for this type of validity analysis. The Dutch version of the FOCUS-34 questionnaire used here has not yet been independently validated. No preschool children in the sample were at the most severe communication level (CFCS V), so the tools' performance at that extreme is unknown.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests. The study was funded by Dutch charitable foundations, which had no role in the content of the research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a child's functional communication score automatically tells you their spoken language comprehension level in toddlers. The link between these two is weak under age 4, so you must assess comprehension directly in this age group rather than inferring it from a communication questionnaire.