Pertinence of parental screening for delays of language in children aged four to six years

This study investigates the relevance of the information provided by parents when screening for language delays in pre-school children. Parents of 670 pupils of medium section of nursery school (4-5 years) and of 799 pupils of the high section of nursery school (5-6 years) answered questions about their child's language and behaviour. Some of these same children passed currently available ERTL4 and BREV tasks (in medium section) and BSEDS tasks (in high section). Items concerning language delay were selected from the parents' questionnaire by the principal component analysis method, and correlation between parental answers to these items and the task results were examined. Parents' opinion was strongly and specifically correlated with tasks assessing the correct/incorrect aspects of speech and expressive language and less strongly with tasks assessing vocabulary or comprehension. Parents' opinion is useful when screening for delays of speech and expressive language in pre-school children.