Instruments for screening and assessing oral language in preschool children via digital health: a scoping review.
Rhadimylla Nágila Pereira, Karinna Veríssimo Meira Taveira, Joseli Soares Brazorotto
PMID 41779563WHAT IT FOUND
Most digital language tools tested with young children matched in-person results, but validation was inconsistent.
Teachers and community health workers screened accurately via apps, though internet limits and low specificity in some tools remain barriers to routine use.
Key findings
01Traditional face-to-face language instruments like the PPVT and CELF yielded results comparable to in-person administration when adapted for digital contexts, confirmed by statistical tests.
02Validation of digital tools was heterogeneous; only one of four newly developed screening apps provided detailed data on correlation with face-to-face measures, while others reported only inter-rater reliability or unspecified validation.
03Trained community health workers achieved substantial to almost perfect agreement with speech-language pathologists when administering smartphone-based developmental screenings, suggesting a viable model for expanding coverage.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Validation processes were heterogeneous, with several studies failing to report statistical comparisons against face-to-face gold standards. Administration time data were missing from eleven of the twenty studies, limiting feasibility analysis for busy clinics. The review excluded studies on bilingual children, which may limit generalizability to multilingual populations. No studies from Latin America, the Middle East, or East Asia were identified, creating a geographic bias in the evidence base. Internet infrastructure disparities were noted as a major barrier, particularly for synchronous videoconferencing in low-income settings.
Declared interests
The authors declared nothing to disclose regarding financial support or conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that any app or digital tool is clinically valid simply because it is available. Many tools in this review lacked rigorous comparison to face-to-face standards, and one screening tool showed low specificity, meaning it flagged many children who did not have a disorder.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →