Comparison of African American Children's Performances on a Minimal Competence Core for Morphosyntax and the Index of Productive Syntax.

Purpose: This study is a response to the need for evidence-based measures of spontaneous oral language to assess African American children under the age of 4 years. We determined if pass/fail status on a minimal competence core for morphosyntax (MCC-MS) was more highly related to scores on the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn)-the measure of convergent criterion validity-than to scores on 3 measures of divergent validity: number of different words (Watkins, Kelly, Harbers, & Hollis, 1995), Percentage of Consonants Correct-Revised (Shriberg, Austin, Lewis, McSweeney, & Wilson, 1997), and the Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised (Roid & Miller, 1997).

Method: Archival language samples for 68 African American 3-year-olds were analyzed to determine MCC-MS pass/fail status and the scores on measures of convergent and divergent validity.

Results: Higher IPSyn scores were observed for 60 children who passed the MCC-MS than for 8 children who did not. A significant positive correlation, rpb = .73, between MCC-MS pass/fail status and IPSyn scores was observed. This coefficient was higher than MCC-MS correlations with measures of divergent validity: rpb = .13 (Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised), rpb = .42 (number of different words in 100 utterances), and rpb = .46 (Percentage of Consonants Correct-Revised).

Conclusion: The MCC-MS has convergent criterion validity with the IPSyn. Although more research is warranted, both measures can be potentially used in oral language assessments of African American 3-year-olds.