Development Of Language Screening Tool In Urdu (Lstu)

Abstract

Background: Issues arising in the prenatal, perinatal, and post-natal periods may result in a delay in the development of language milestones in children, affecting communication. With dearth of culturally appropriate screeners to screen these children in the Urdu language needs to be addressed.

Objective: To develop and validate a language screening tool in Urdu (LSTU) for children who are suspected of developing language disorders, for use by professionals and parents.

Methods: This exploratory study using convenience sampling was conducted at Riphah International University from 1^st February to 31^st July, 2023. The study was conducted in two phases. In phase 1, a tool named “Language Screener in Urdu Langu[1]age” was developed and items constructed by experts and a literature review followed by validation by 10 experts. In Phase 2 the developed tool was piloted on a sample of 120 children to analyze its reliability including Cronbach alpha and factor analysis for domain identification within the tool, using SPSS 21.

 Results: The study developed a language screener in Urdu including three sub-categories according to age groups including i) birth to 6 months: 20 items, ii) 6 months to 1 year: 19 items, and iii) 1-2 years: 15 items. In addition to Face validity, the Convent validity CV/AVE index for the first and second categories was 0.89 and 0.94 for the third category. The tool has a high Cronbach alpha for the three sub-categories including α= 0.7, 0.9 and 0.966. The Exploratory Factor Analysis also revealed high values of 0.735,0 .710, 0 .799.

Conclusion: The “Language Screener in Urdu” (LSTU) is a locally developed, standardized tool with good reliability, validity, and variability for early identification and screening of children who are at risk for developing language disorders.