City Research Online

Abstract

Purpose:
The aim of this study was to evaluate the crosslinguistic validity of the Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Test (CL-NWR) based on a large multicountry sample by investigating factors related to language ability, as well as potential confounds.

Method:
The data consisted of CL-NWR scores from children aged 37–165 months, collected by 18 research teams across 15 countries. Item-level analysis was employed to examine any nondesirable effects of gender, socioeconomic status, bilingual status, and the amount of exposure to the test language, as well as desirable effects of age, item length, and clinical status (children categorized as typically developing [TD], with developmental language disorder [DLD], or with reported language concerns [LC], respectively). Subsamples were used to evaluate the consistency of findings across three time points and between different versions of the CL-NWR.

Results:
Bayesian analysis provided strong evidence for the effects of age, item length, and clinical status on CL-NWR performance, as well as consistency across time points. In contrast, there was weak or no evidence for the effects of gender, socioeconomic status, bilingual status, amount of exposure, or test version. Additionally, there were two interactions between (a) item length and clinical status, suggesting that children with DLD found longer nonwords disproportionately more challenging than TD children, and (b) age and clinical status, with the gap between TD and LC groups narrowing with age.

Conclusions:
The CL-NWR was unaffected by environmental and demographic factors that often influence language assessments, including some nonword repetition tests. Performance was driven by factors reflecting language abilities. This makes the CL-NWR a unique and valuable tool for language assessment contributing to the identification of DLD in diverse linguistic, social, and geographical contexts.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article has been published in its final form in Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (JSLHR) and it's available online at: https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_JSLHR-25-00158
Publisher Keywords:	bilingualism; assessment; developmental language disorder
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Allied Health
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads