Psychology
in
the
Schools
Volume
24, Ju/y
1987
CONCURRENT VALIDITY OF
THE BATTELLEDEVELOPMENTAL INVENTORYFOR
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DISORDERED CHILDREN
STACEY
E.
MOTT
Early Intervention Research Institute,’
Utah State University
Concurrent validity of the Battelle Developmental Inventory (BDI) was investigated
with speech and language disordered children between the ages of
35
and
60
months.
Correlations between the BDI expressive communication subdomain and the Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R), Preschool Language Scale-Revised
(PLS-R), and Arizona Articulation Proficiency Scale-Revised (AAPS-R)
were
sig-
nificant. The BDI total score was also significantly correlated with the PPVT-R and
the PLS-R. There were no significant differences between the three BDI developmental
quotients and PPVT-R standard scores. The receptive communication subdomain
of
the BDI did not correlate significantly with any of the language measures.
The Battelle Developmental Inventory (BDI) (Newborg, Stock, Wnek, Guidubaldi,
&
Svinicki,
1984)
is a newly developed assessment instrument that has been added to
the pool of measures for assessing infants and young children. The addition of this in-
strument is welcome in light of the paucity
of
broadly based measures available for this
population (Mott, Fewell, Lewis, Meisels, Shonkoff,
&
Simeonsson,
1986).
The Bat-
telle has a number of unique characteristics that make it a promising addition. First
of all, the test spans the age range from birth to eight, thus facilitating follow-up
assessments of children across a relatively broad age span. The test is also multifac-
tored; that is, it assesses five domains of developmental functioning, including personal-
social behavior, adaptive behavior, motor skills (both gross and fine motor), communica-
tion (both expressive and receptive), and cognitive abilities. The test manual also states
that assessment results from the Battelle are useful
for
making placement decisions, as
well as for program planning, as the test’s content is closely linked to the curricula
of
early childhood and preschool programs.
Initial psychometric data on the Battelle support its reliability and validity. As
reported in the test manual, test-retest reliability based on a sample of
183
children tested
four weeks apart was
.88
for the total test, with coefficients for the subdomains and
domains ranging from
.81
to
.97.
Interrater reliability was also high, ranging from
.95
to
.99
for the subdomains and domains, and
.97
for
the total test. Validity studies
reported in the manual indicate significant correlations between the BDI component
scores and the Vineland Social Maturity Scale (Doll,
1965),
Developmental Activities
Screening Inventory (DASI) (Dubose
&
Langley,
1977),
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
(Terman
&
Merrill,
1973),
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R)
(Wechsler,
1974),
and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) (Dunn
&
Dunn,
1981)
scores. However, these validity data, particularly for the WISC-R and
PPVT-R correlations, were based on a small sample
of
subjects with relatively restricted
skill levels. The authors of the BDI recommend that additional research be conducted
in this area.
Reprint requests should be sent to Stacey
E.
Mott, Early Intervention Research Institute, Utah State
’The work reported in this article was carried out in part with funds from the
US.
Department of Education
University, Logan, UT
84322-6850.
(Contract
#300-85-0173)
to
the Early Intervention Research Institute at Utah State University.
215