An educator-administered measure of language development in young children

This article presents CDI: Educator (CDI-Edu), a reliable, quick and teacher-controlled measuring instrument for language development in Danish toddlers.

CDI-Edu is developed with Danish-speaking children in mind, but can be adapted to other languages and is based on well-developed and validated parental reporting objectives that have been adapted to the kindergarten setting. The test requires about ten minutes per child and should be carried out by a kindergarten teacher. It is based on a 70-item checklist of vocabulary, as well as questions aimed at the child’s use of decontextualised language in terms of objects and actions distant from the here and now.  

The measuring instrument is standardised through tests carried out on 5097 Danish children aged 18-34 months. Reliability has been tested through test-retest and measurements of internal consistency. The validity is established through correlations with age, maternal level of education, the Danish version of the One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test and the Social Emotional Assessment Measure instrument.

Bleses, D., Jensen, P. Højen, A. & Dale, P.S. (2018). "An educator-administered measure of language development in young children". Infant Behavior and Developement, 52:104–113.