Purpose: Assessing early language skills through parental report is a cost-effective way to screen for language delays when resources are scarce. A pan-Arabic lexeme approach was tested by extending the Egyptian adaptation (Abdelwahab et al., 2021) of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI; Fenson et al., 1994) to Jordan and Palestine, in infants aged 8 to 30 months (Arabic CDI Toddler). We also developed a version for children aged 30 to 48 months (Arabic CDI Child) in the three countries. A fair representation of the population in terms of geographical spread, maternal education and environmental context was obtained through stratified sampling.
Methods: The Arabic CDI Toddler, containing a 100-word list with dialect variations from the three countries, was completed online or face-to-face by 427 Egyptian (including 259 from Abdelwahab et al., 2021), 455 Jordanian and 440 Palestinian mothers. The Arabic CDI Child, comprising a 100-word list, 23 simple/complex pairs of sentences and 11 language use questions, was completed by 836 Egyptian parents, 318 Jordanians and 304 Palestinians. 1Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) facilitated contact with harder-to-reach families due to illiteracy or limited internet access.
Results: Child gender and maternal education effects were found for the Arabic CDI Toddler in Jordan and Palestine, while maternal education effects were generally found across the three countries and all sections of the Arabic CDI Child. For the Arabic CDI Toddler, norms were computed for Jordan and Palestine, separately from Egypt. For the Arabic CDI Child, separate norms were provided for each country.
Conclusion: The production of a unique set of norms was contained to two countries for 8-22 30-month-old children, highlighting the limits of a pan-Arabic lexeme approach to the development of parental reports. The Arabic CDI Toddler and CDI Child have the potential to be useful to parents, Early Years professionals and researchers who need to assess children’s Arabic knowledge for detecting those at risk of poor language outcomes and in need of intervention.