PURPOSE: Language acquisition and development takes in account the child's interaction with the surrounding environment. Daily social interactions with people and communication with others allow the child to acquire language being pragmatics considered a system of rules that support the communicative use of language. Identification and assessment of children at risk for language disorders are crucial in order to carry out an effective early intervention. This study was carried out taking into account first, the relevance of pragmatics as a component of language, and second the lack of assessment tools in Portugal to assess these abilities. Therefore, the aim of this study consists on the translation, adaptation and validation of the inventory "Language Use Inventory" (LUI), to European Portuguese. The LUI is a standardized parent report measure designed to assess pragmatic language development in children within 18- to 47-month-old. METHODS: All procedures recommended by test adaptation guidelines were adopted in this study. A pilot study was carried out with a sample of 120 inventories, answered by the parents/caregivers of the Portuguese children in the target age groups. RESULTS: Cronbach's alpha, which is a numerical coefficient of reliability obtained for the scale strongly confirm a very good internal consistency for the LUI-Pt with 0.97 for the total scale, and coefficients between 0, 71 - 0, 96 for the subscales. CONCLUSION: Preliminary results indicate the internal validity of the LUI-Pt for Portuguese children confirming its clinical usefulness as an assessment tool.
Evaluation; Language Tests; Child Language; Communication; Early Intervention