A language development scale of young children

Purposes. The purpose of this study was to develop a new language diagnostic scale for young Taiwanese children under thirty-six months of age. Three questions were formulated for this study. The first question was to determine whether an instrument to measure early language development of young children in Taiwan could be developed. The second question asked whether this instrument was reliable and valid. The third question was if this instrument could provide guidelines for teachers and parents in the area of language development.;Procedure. A total of 180 infants and toddlers were selected for this study using a stratified sampling procedure from the young children in pre-schools and day care centers in Taiwan. Of the 180 children, 90 females and 90 males were evaluated twice. The children were divided into six different groups according to age (0-6 months, 7-12 months, 13-18 months, 19-24 months, 24-30 months, and 31-36 months). Each evaluation employed 72 items from the developed language diagnostic scale. The data were analyzed using statistical procedures and analysis for reliability and validity of this instrument.;Conclusions. The results indicated that this language development scale was highly reliable and valid. These results clearly imply that this scale can be used to accurately evaluate the language development of Taiwanese children between two weeks and thirty-six months of age. Not only is this instrument the first of its kind, but also it lends aid to teachers and parents in determining the correct course of educational intervention for the young children.