Assessing Sentences in Young Children: A Comparison of the Sentence Diversity Priming Task and Play-Based Language Samples

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of measures obtained from the Sentence Diversity Priming Task (SDPT), a structured elicitation protocol for assessing sentence development under supported conditions. We compared measures from the SDPT and a play-based language sample and between late-talking (LT) toddlers and typically developing (TD) peers. We evaluated differences between the two sampling contexts and examined how measures obtained from the two contexts were related. METHOD: A sample of 60 LT toddlers and 77 TD toddlers between 30 and 38 months of age were drawn from the Midwest When to Worry study. Toddlers completed the SDPT and a 10-min parent-child language sample delivered and/or recorded through remote video chat platforms. Samples were analyzed for the number of complete and intelligible utterances, mean length of utterance (MLU), number of different words, verb diversity, and third-person (3P) subject diversity. We used repeated-measures analyses of variance to examine differences in measures across sampling context and LT language status as well as Pearson correlations to examine associations between measures. RESULTS: The SDPT elicited longer utterances with more diverse 3P subjects and verbs in fewer utterances than the play samples. Measures obtained from the SDPT also differentiated LT and TD groups, with a significant Group × Sampling Context interaction for MLU and 3P subject diversity. Measures across the SDPT and play sample were also significantly associated. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the validity of the SDPT as an efficient tool for assessing sentence diversity with young children. Potential uses of the measures derived from the SDPT to distinguish toddlers most at risk for developmental language disorder are discussed. Demonstrating discriminative utility will be an important next step. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.32065587.