CDI construction - what to put in

[Donna Thal]

Hi Katie,

The process outlined by Leslie below is the one that Donna
Jackson-Maldonado used for the Mexican Spanish version. It is also the
strategy that was used by Liz Bates and her students in constructing the
original CDI. My guess is that most of the adaptations to other languages
used similar strategies in order to develop a final product that is valid
for the particular language.  Validation from language samples, if
possible, is certainly the best strategy I can think of.

Best regards,

         Donna

At 12:56 PM 4/6/2004, Leslie Nabors wrote:
>Hi Katie,
>
>Since I am just now completing the Hungarian adaptation of the CDI
>(toddler form), I believe I can speak to the first part of your question.
>Hungarian is a morphologically rich language, so, as you said, looking at
>an English-language CDI will get you only so far...
>
>I began with the original MacArthur CDI, however, noting that not all of
>the English closed-class words are there either (e.g., "whom",
>"ourselves"). I then looked at natural language samples (mostly
>MacWhinney's) to see what kids in that range might be saying. Hungarian is
>also lucky to have a really well-structured and detailed diary study from
>the 19th century, and I looked at that too. I then took my draft copy and
>met with focus groups of parents, a school psychologist, and nursery
>school teachers (in Hungary) before I made the final version.
>I don't know how much this helps, but I believe it worked well for my
>project. I'm now beginning work on the infant form with a group of
>Hungarian researchers, and we will definitely conduct the focus groups
>again -- they were incredibly helpful.
>
>Best of luck,
>
>Leslie Nabors Olah
>
>
>
>On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 08:25:37 +0100
>  "Alcock, Katherine" <k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
>>We're constructing a CDI in two East African languages which both have a
>>lot of grammatical words.  For example, I have just counted up the
>>possessives and there are about 60 in one of the languages and more in
>>the other.
>>
>>In English it seems as if all pronouns etc. are put in to the toddler
>>scale - what about in more grammar-rich languages? Would it be sensible
>>to pilot all the words and then leave in some that distinguish well? Or
>>to ask parents about some of the words and to give examples of the others
>>their children can say? We are administering the inventory as an
>>interview as our parents are illiterate so the parents are a captive
>>audience - they can't go off to pick the kids up in the middle of doing
>>the questionnaire, and then forget about filling it in - but it takes longer.
>>
>>Secondly, and I have a feeling this was discussed recently, what exactly
>>constitutes a word? Common phrases are included in the English version,
>>and it seems to me they are often combinations of other pairs of
>>words.  Presumably we are assuming that children have not analysed the
>>phrases into their separate words - is there evidence that children use
>>the phrases (e.g. peanut butter) without their consituent words (peanut,
>>butter) and hence it adds information to include the phrases?  There seem
>>to be fewer phrases in the short forms of the questionnaire, and I'm not
>>sure if this is deliberate.
>>
>>thanks
>>
>>Katie Alcock
>

Donna Thal
Donna J. Thal, Ph.D.
Developmental Psycholinguistics Laboratory
6330 Alvarado Court, Suite 231
San Diego, CA  92120-1850

phone: 619-594-7110
fax: 619-594-4570

San Diego State University
Department of Communicative Disorders and
SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/chhs/cd/Dpl/DPL/index.htm

Research Psychologist
Center for Research on Language
University of California, San Diego
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