The Assessment of Early Pragmatic Development: A Study of the Reliability and Validity of the Language Use Inventory-Italian

Abstract

Purpose Pragmatics is receiving much attention in both the fields of developmental and clinical psychology; however, there is a dearth of instruments to assess pragmatic abilities specifically among young toddler-age children. The aim of the current study was to test the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Language Use Inventory (LUI), named the LUI-Italian, a parent report measure assessing pragmatic language development in children 18–47 months of age. Method Parents of Italian-speaking children who ranged in age between 18 and 47 months completed the LUI-Italian at T1 ( N = 389) and 1 week later ( N = 53). At T1, children were also administered the First Language Test (Test del Primo Linguaggio [TPL]), a direct measure of pragmatics, vocabulary, and syntax. Results Cronbach's alpha values were at or above acceptable levels. Factor analysis and test–retest confirmed the strong structure and reliability of the LUI-Italian. Some evidence for concurrent validity was found, as shown by associations between the LUI-Italian and the TPL. Conclusions The LUI-Italian demonstrated good psychometric properties relating to reliability, thus providing a sound basis for proceeding to a standardization study, and supporting cross-cultural comparison of pragmatic development and further exploration of profiles of pragmatic competence for children displaying language impairments or delay. Future studies need to further test concurrent, divergent, and predictive validity of the LUI-Italian.