The Influence of Communication Sample Length on Reliability and Convergent Validity of Vocal Measures Derived From the Communication Complexity Scale.
Jena McDaniel, Nancy C Brady
PMID 36095328WHAT IT FOUND
For children with autism who use few or no words, a 10-minute sample from the start of a standard play-based assessment provides reliable vocal data.
Shorter samples work for consonant inventory, but counting total or communicative vocalizations requires the full 10 minutes.
Key findings
01All six vocal measures showed very good reliability when coded from 10-minute samples taken from the beginning of the assessment.
02Consonant inventory maintained acceptable reliability in samples as short as 3 minutes, whereas other measures required longer samples.
03Samples taken from the midpoint of the assessment were less reliable than those taken from the beginning for most vocal measures.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 31 children, all with autism and minimal verbal skills, so results may not apply to children with other disabilities or higher language levels. The findings are specific to the structured CCS assessment context and may not generalize to less structured settings like the home or classroom. The study did not evaluate whether these measures predict future language progress or respond to intervention. Socioeconomic status data were not collected, limiting the understanding of the sample's diversity.
Declared interests
The research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U54HD090216; Kansas Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center). No commercial conflicts were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that any 10-minute segment of the assessment is equally informative. The study found that samples taken from the midpoint of the session were less reliable for key measures like total vocalizations than those taken from the very beginning. Always start your coding at the beginning of the interaction.