Research
Development of a Parent Report Measure
for Profiling the Conversational Skills of
Preschool Children
Luigi Girolametto
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
A rating scale was developed for parents to
use in profiling the conversational skills of their
toddlers and young preschoolers with expressive
skills between 12–36 months. The scale items
were tested on 60 children with language delays
and measured parental perceptions of two types
of conversational interactions specifically
designed to respond to the partner (i.e., answer
questions, continue the topic of conversation)
and to assert (i.e., request, initiate topics).
Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the
rating scale indicates that the individual items
within each set are correlated with the total scale
P
arent-administered rating scales and inventories are
rapidly becoming recognized as an accepted
supplement to conventional language assessments
because they are generally regarded as being valid, reli-
able, and cost-effective (Dale, 1991; Dale, Bates, Reznick
& Morisset, 1989; Hadley & Rice, 1993; Rescorla, 1989;
Suen, Logan, Neisworth, & Bagnato, 1995). Their develop-
ment is consistent with philosophical trends that advocate
family-centered practices in the delivery of services to
toddlers and preschoolers. Parent involvement in the as-
sessment process is especially important when families are
involved in home-based language intervention programs
such as milieu teaching (Alpert & Kaiser, 1992), interac-
tive intervention (Tannock & Girolametto, 1992), or fo-
cused stimulation (Fey, Cleave, Long, & Hughes, 1993;
Girolametto, Pearce, & Weitzman, 1996). Parents in these
intervention programs assume the role of primary change
agents, and their perceptions of their children’s abilities may
have a direct bearing on how they view their child as a con-
versational partner and on the ultimate success of treatment.
Parent report has a number of inherent advantages.
First, in contrast to the restricted “snapshot” of communi-
cation behaviors that is obtained in clinical settings,
parents have longitudinal experiences with their children
and multiple opportunities to observe them in more
naturalistic and diverse interactive contexts (Girolametto,
Tannock, & Siegel, 1993; Suen et al., 1995). Second,
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scores for responsiveness and assertiveness,
respectively. Alpha coefficients were stable when
calculated for two different samples. Moreover,
administering the scale twice to a subset of 20
parents yielded a high degree of short-term test-
retest reliability. The profiles of 6 children are
presented to illustrate the clinical usefulness of
the rating scale as a means of identifying areas
of deficit and selecting potential treatment goals.
The rating scale provides a clinically useful tool
for including parental perceptions in the overall
assessment of the young child’s communicative
ability.
parent report may be more accurate than direct observation
when it remains questionable whether the clinician-child
interaction is truly representative. Many toddlers and
preschoolers may be uncomfortable with novel conversa-
tion partners (i.e., the clinician) or the type of eliciting
context used in standardized language testing. Third,
parent report can be obtained before the clinician sees the
child in order to facilitate the selection of tentative goals
for dynamic assessment procedures or to promote collabo-
ration between parent and clinician, consistent with family-
centered assessment practices. Finally, when parent report
differs from formal assessment findings, an opportunity
exists to enhance parents’ observations of their child’s
communication abilities (Suen et al., 1995).
One aspect of communicative development that is suitable
for parent assessment is the child’s ability to be assertive and
responsive in conversational exchanges. This early develop-
ing aspect of pragmatic ability is difficult to measure during a
traditional assessment session because an accurate evaluation
depends on observing the child in a variety of conversational
contexts with numerous partners, requiring extensive
contextual information. Moreover, a child’s conversational
skills are not predictable from standardized language tests,
nor is there a direct developmental correspondence between
language level and conversational ability (Fey, 1986). For
example, two children with language impairment who have
similar scores on receptive and expressive tests may exhibit
Girolametto 25
 very different levels of conversational assertiveness and
responsiveness (Fey, 1986; Fey & Leonard, 1983; Fujiki &
Brinton, 1991).
The importance of assessing conversational asser-
tiveness and responsiveness in young children is under-
scored by both theoretical and clinical considerations.
Theoretically, socio-interactionist perspectives on language
acquisition (e.g., Nelson, 1993) presume that children who
effectively use assertive and responsive skills for engaging
a partner in conversation will receive more linguistic input
that is matched to their level of ability and topic, resulting
in accelerated language development. This has direct
implications for young children with language delays, for
whom participation in optimal parent-child interactions is
considered crucial for surmounting initial communication
lags and fostering developmental progress. For example,
low levels of conversational ability may adversely affect
the child’s capacity to interactively engage the parent,
thereby reducing the quantity and quality of language input
(e.g., Cross, 1977; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1986; Nelson, 1993).
Clinically, the assessment of conversational skills has a
direct bearing on goal selection. Fey (1986) proposes four
profiles of conversational skills that suggest different
treatment goals: (a) the active conversationalist, who
demonstrates high levels of assertiveness and responsive-
ness; (b) the passive conversationalist, who is responsive
but nonassertive; (c) the inactive communicator, who
demonstrates low levels of responsive and assertive
behavior; and (d) the verbal noncommunicator, who is
highly assertive but nonresponsive. Treatment goals for the
active conversationalist may include conventional lexical,
morphosyntactic, or phonologic forms, whereas appropri-
ate goals for children with poorer conversational abilities
may include enhancing responsiveness and assertiveness
skills prior to teaching more advanced linguistic skills.
Given that home-based parent training may be the service
delivery model of choice for toddlers and young pre-
schoolers, these treatment goals are typically addressed
within the context of naturalistic parent-child interactions.
Therefore, determining how parents perceive their child’s
conversational strengths and weaknesses becomes of
paramount importance. If parents perceive their child as
low in both conversational assertiveness and responsive-
ness (i.e., uninterested in conversational interaction), it is
desirable to maximize the child’s active participation in
conversational interaction to increase opportunities for
language learning.
Some standardized tests of early communication
development for infants and toddlers assess pragmatic
abilities together with receptive and expressive language
development. For example, the Communication and
Symbolic Behavior Scales (Wetherby & Prizant, 1993), the
Preschool Language Scale–3 (Zimmerman, Steiner, &
Pond, 1992), the Bzoch-League Receptive-Expressive
Emergent Language Scale–2 (Bzoch & League, 1991), and
the Rossetti Infant-Toddler Language Scale (Rossetti,
1990) yield valuable information about the use of commu-
nicative intentions (e.g., requesting, commenting) and topic
management (e.g., turn-taking, initiation of routines) in a
clinical context. However, they require supplementary
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assessment information to complete an accurate profile of
assertiveness and responsiveness. In addition, they fail to
measure the parents’ perceptions of their child’s
assertiveness and responsiveness during naturalistic
interactions in familiar environments.
Specific tests of pragmatic abilities, such as the Prag-
matic Communication Skills Protocol (Academic Commu-
nication Associates, 1989), the Pragmatics Profile of Early
Communication (Dewart & Summers, 1988), and the Test
of Pragmatic Skills (Shulman, 1986), assess communica-
tion acts in greater depth. Unfortunately, it is time consum-
ing for the clinician to search and group relevant test items
into responsive and assertive sets. Furthermore, the
Pragmatics Profile of Early Communication is the only
measure that is administered by interviewing a family
member about examples from daily interactions. The other
two measures require extensive clinician-child interactions
or observation of interactions in different contexts.
There are but a few measures designed specifically to
profile a child’s conversational assertiveness and respon-
siveness. These include two coding systems that are
applied to observations of naturalistic interactions (Fey,
1986; Rice, Sell, & Hadley, 1990), and one parent report
instrument (Hadley & Rice, 1993). Interaction coding is
very time-consuming, especially given the need for
extensive contextual sampling for deriving an accurate
assessment. The one existing parental report instrument,
the Speech and Language Assessment Scale (SLAS;
Hadley & Rice, 1993) is designed for older preschoolers,
aged 3 to 5 years, and offers limited information about
conversational skills. For example, the SLAS includes
three items concerning assertiveness (i.e., asks questions
properly, gets what s/he wants by talking, starts conversa-
tions with peers) and two items that address responsiveness
(i.e., answers questions properly, keeps conversations
going with peers). A major drawback of this scale is that it
is not applicable to younger children who are intentionally
communicative but nonverbal. A second disadvantage is
that two items ask parents to rate their child’s conversa-
tional abilities with peers when they may have had limited
opportunities to observe their children in group settings.
Finally, two items concerning the ability to ask or answer
questions are designed to assess correct grammatical
formulation and thus do not permit the clinician to differ-
entiate between grammatical appropriateness and conversa-
tional ability.
The aim of the current study was to describe the
development of a rating scale designed to elicit clinically
useful and reliable information from parents about their
child’s conversational assertiveness and responsiveness in
everyday dyadic contexts. The 25-item scale was designed
for children with language impairment who have expres-
sive language skills from 12–36 months of age. This age
range was selected because it (a) coincides with the age
range during which early identification of delays is usually
made, and (b) covers the development of communication
abilities that are common intervention goals for young
preschoolers (i.e., conversational ability, vocabulary,
multiword phrases). The development of the rating scale
proceeded in two phases: during Phase 1, responsive and
November 1997
 assertive skills were operationally defined, and an initial
pool of items was drafted. In Phase 2, the scale was used
with 40 families of preschool children with language
delays, and their responses to the items were statistically
evaluated to identify nonfunctioning items. Next, 20
additional families completed the scale twice to provide
data on the cross-validity of the scale and an estimate of
short-term, test-retest reliability. Finally, clinical applica-
tion of the scale is demonstrated by using the assessment
information of three matched pairs of children with varying
etiologies and degrees of language impairment.
Phase 1
Purpose
The purpose of Phase 1 was to develop items that
reflected responsive and assertive conversational skills in
preschool children with expressive language skills between
12–36 months. The content of the items was reviewed by
10 speech-language pathologists and pilot-tested on four
mothers for information about the ease of administration
and length of time required to complete the scale.
Methods
Procedures. During this phase, the author developed a
total of 78 items to reflect both assertive and responsive
conversational acts. Assertive acts were operationally defined
as communicative behaviors that were used by the child to
(a) regulate the parent’s behavior using requests (Fey, 1986),
(b) ask questions (Fey, 1986; Hadley & Rice, 1993), (c)
make spontaneous comments (Fey, 1986), and (d) initiate
play or conversation (Hadley & Rice, 1993). Responsiveness
was defined as the child’s ability to (a) respond to a partner’s
requests, questions, or commands (Fey, 1986); and (b)
continue the topic of the partner’s preceding turn (Hadley &
Rice, 1993). Multiple items were developed for each area to
provide parents with several different opportunities to rate a
specific behavior. The items were formulated so that they
would be simple to read and understand, and could be
answered using a 5-point frequency response scale (i.e.,
1 = Never, 2 = Almost Never, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Almost
Always, 5 = Always). The author developed items to reflect
the dimension being measured as closely as possible without
including specific contexts. For example, specific games and
routines that varied depending on the child’s developmental
level (e.g., peek-a-boo) or differences in familial routines
(e.g., eating out, bedtime book reading) were avoided. The
intent was for parents to rate a responsive or assertive skill
across a wide variety of situations, and not within one
specific event or context.
To ensure the face validity of the 78 items, they were
evaluated by 10 speech-language pathologists who worked
at three pediatric centers in Metropolitan Toronto and had a
minimum of 4 years of clinical experience with pre-
schoolers. Following a procedure suggested by deVellis
(1991), each clinician was provided with a written state-
ment regarding the purpose of the questionnaire and was
asked to use indicators of “high,” “moderate,” or “low” to
rate (a) the relevance of each item vis-a-vis responsive and
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assertive skills, and (b) the clarity and conciseness of the
wording. Comments regarding cultural appropriateness and
developmental level of the items were also solicited.
The scale was subsequently administered to four mothers
(two mothers of children without disabilities and two mothers
of children with language delay) to determine how long it
would take to complete the questionnaire and whether the
items were easy to understand. Because the focus was on
time constraints and clarity of wording, the children’s
developmental status was not ascertained. However, the
children were between 12–24 months of chronological age.
Only four mothers were asked to complete the questionnaire,
due to the amount of time required for undertaking an
interview. Once the mothers completed the scale, a research
assistant interviewed them individually and asked them to
paraphrase the items. If an item was misinterpreted, they
were asked to suggest changes in the wording. Finally, using
procedures delineated by Fry (1977), the average reading
difficulty of items was established.
Results
Thirty-five of the 78 items were deleted from the item
bank because five or more of the speech-language patholo-
gists rated them as “low” for relevance, or indicated that
the content was too specific to a narrow developmental
range (e.g., asking permission, providing information).
Items that were rated “moderate” for relevance were
revised to clarify the intent, and those judged “high” were
retained without changes. All changes to items were
verified with the reviewers to confirm that ambiguities had
been resolved.
The 43-item scale was administered to four mothers
who required an average of 20 minutes to complete the
scale. All four stated that the written instructions were
clear (see Appendix A for a copy of the instructions). An
item-by-item review resulted in minor changes in the
wording of some items to clarify their meaning, but all 43
items were retained. The average reading difficulty of
items was estimated to be at a Grade 5 level using Fry’s
(1977) procedures, which is an acceptable reading level for
a scale designed for parental use (deVellis, 1991).
Phase 2
Purpose
The purpose of Phase 2 was to administer the scale to
40 parents of preschool children with language delays and
statistically analyze the results to identify nonfunctioning
items (i.e., items that did not correlate, or correlated
negatively, with the remaining items in the scale). Data
from a second sample of 20 families were used to cross-
validate the findings from the first sample. These parents
also completed the scale a second time to provide an
estimate of short-term test-retest reliability.
Methods
Participants. Sixty families of preschoolers with
language delay participated in this study. Descriptive data
Girolametto 27
 for the children can be found in Table 1. The development
sample consisted of 40 children who were referred to the
project by speech-language pathologists working in three
major pediatric centers in metropolitan Toronto. All
children were language impaired, were receiving treatment
or were on active waiting lists for treatment, and were in
the preschool age range of 28–56 months. Twenty children
had expressive language skills within the developmental
range of 12–23 months (mean = 18.4 months), and 20 had
expressive language skills between 24–36 months (mean =
27.7 months) as measured by the Reynell Developmental
Language Scales (Reynell & Gruber, 1990). All children
were delayed in expressive language skills by at least 10
months, and for the 26 children who used a minimum of 50
intelligible utterances in their language sample, MLU
values (mean length of utterance in morphemes) fell below
one standard deviation of the mean for their respective ages
(Miller, 1981). The receptive language skills of the
children were variable but were delayed by at least 6
months as measured by performance on standardized tests.
Receptive language scores were not available for 3
children whose testing was incomplete due to poor
attention span or behavioral difficulties. There were 20
females and 20 males, split evenly between these two
groups. The majority of these children (15 in the low
expressive group and 16 in the high expressive group) had
language delays that were not attributable to a specific
etiology. Nine children were diagnosed by their pediatri-
cians to have general developmental delays or other
etiologies (e.g., pervasive developmental delay, seizure
disorder, traumatic brain injury, spina bifida, fetal distress
syndrome).
The replication sample consisted of 20 children with
expressive vocabulary delays who were recruited for
participation in a larger study of treatment efficacy (for
details of this study see Girolametto, Pearce, & Weitzman,
1996). These children were referred to the project by their
parents due to concerns regarding slow expressive language
development, and all subsequently received a home-based
language intervention program. Their expressive language
skills were estimated to be within the 12- to 23-month
TABLE 1. Characteristics of the 60 children with language
delays.
Development Replication Sample:
Sample Late Talkers
Variable (n = 40) (n = 20)
CAa Mean (SD) 40 (6.8) 29 (3.3)
Range 28–56 24–35
ELA b
Mean (SD) 24 (5.5) 18 (3.6)
Range 16–36 12–23
RLAb Mean (SD) 25 (6.6) 24 (4.3)
Range 13–38 16–32
MLUc Mean (SD) 2.15 (.71) n/a
Range 1.20–3.83
Note. aChronological age (in months); bExpressive and receptive
language age (in months); cMean length of utterance in mor-
phemes, calculated for 26 children in the development sample.
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range according to standardized testing, and their expres-
sive vocabulary sizes fell below the 5th percentile for their
respective ages as measured by the Communicative
Development Inventory (CDI; Fenson et al., 1993). None
of the children in this group used the minimum 50 utter-
ances required for the calculation of MLU values. Ten had
receptive skills within normal limits, and 10 had delays in
receptive language skills ranging from 4 months to 12
months below the norms for their chronological ages.
These late talkers were all males between 24 and 35
months of age.
The hearing abilities of all 60 children were indepen-
dently assessed by pediatric audiologists using sound field
testing (behavioral response audiometry or visual rein-
forcement audiometry), and all were judged to have
hearing within normal limits for at least the better ear.
Procedures. All 60 parents and their children took part
in a 1-1/2 hour assessment session. First, a 15-minute
language sample with the parent was videotaped using a
standard set of toys selected to promote interaction (e.g., a
Fisher-Price farm house, a tea set, cars). Parents were
asked to play with their children as they would in a similar
situation at home. Next, the Reynell Developmental
Language Scales (Reynell & Gruber, 1990) or, in the case
of the 20 late talkers, the Sequenced Inventory of Commu-
nication Development (Hedrick, Prather, & Tobin, 1984)
was administered to obtain estimates of receptive and
expressive language ability. Parents completed the rating
scale during the formal language testing. No verbal
instructions were given other than “Please read the
instructions and fill in this questionnaire.”
Parents of the 20 late talkers completed the rating scale
twice, approximately 1 week apart, during two assessments
that were scheduled as part of their participation in a larger
intervention study. The average test-retest period for these
administrations was 7.5 days (SD = 4.0).
A research assistant transcribed the communication
samples obtained during parent-child interaction using the
IBM version of the Systematic Analysis of Language
Transcripts (SALT; Miller & Chapman, 1993). The
children’s verbal utterances from the middle 10 minutes of
the videotaped interaction were transcribed, and MLU was
calculated for the 26 children who produced at least 50
intelligible utterances. The middle 10 minutes were
transcribed to counteract warm-up and fatigue effects that
are typical for this age group.
Results
First, the ratings for the 40 children in the development
sample were analyzed statistically to provide corrected
item-total correlations and Cronbach’s (1951) alpha
coefficients for the responsive and assertive sets of items.
Next, these analyses were replicated using the data from a
second sample of 20 children, and test-retest reliability was
computed. Finally, the concurrent validity of the scale was
estimated by correlating the parental ratings of all 60
children with their chronological age and objective measures
of expressive and receptive language development. All
statistical analyses were performed using SPSS/PC.
November 1997
 Scale Reliability. First, items with negative or low or saying something s/he knows is not right”) is an example
values for corrected item-total correlations were considered of an item for which there was a narrow range of scores
for deletion. Among the 13 responsiveness items, two had because this is a behavior that occurs seldom (score of 3) for
negative correlation coefficients and a third item had a all children. Summary statistics for the remaining responsive-
positive but low value. These three items were deleted ness and assertiveness items are displayed in Table 2.
from the set of responsiveness items. Nine items were Next, item-total correlations and alpha levels were
deleted from the set of 30 assertiveness items using these computed separately for the two sets of 10 responsiveness
same criteria. An additional 8 items were singled out for and 15 assertiveness items that were retained. The corrected
deletion based on visual inspection of their descriptive item-total correlations for the 10 responsiveness items ranged
statistics. These 8 items had mean scores that varied over from .28 to .82, and from .13 to .79 for the 15 assertive items
an extremely narrow range and thus did not adequately (see Table 3). The alpha coefficients were .85 and .91 for
represent the developmental span represented by the responsiveness and assertiveness, respectively.
expressive language abilities of the children in this sample Replication with the second sample of 20 families yielded
(i.e., 12–36 months). For example, ratings for “My child similar results, providing support for the stability of the
protests if I do something s/he doesn’t like or want” were alphas achieved in the development sample. Item-total
uniformly high (mean of 4.6, median of 5) with no ratings correlations were higher than for the development sample,
below 3, indicating that all children in the age group ranging from .45 to .84 for the 10 items representing respon-
sampled protested. A second item that addressed assertive siveness, and from .39 to .88 for the 15 assertiveness items.
teasing behavior (“My child teases me by playfully doing Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were also higher, .88 and .94
for responsiveness and assertiveness, respectively.
TABLE 2. Summary scores for assertiveness and responsive- Concurrent Validity. Data for all 60 subjects were
ness for all 60 children. combined for this analysis. The results of Pearson correla-
tions presented in Table 4 reveal that the receptive lan-
Variables Mean Median SD SE guage score was positively correlated with the mean
Assertiveness 3.7 3.7 .73 .10
ratings for both assertiveness (r = .44, p < .001) and
Responsiveness 3.7 3.7 .74 .10
responsiveness (r = .39, p < .01). In addition, MLU (for the
26 children who produced a sufficient number of utter-
ances for analysis) was significantly correlated with the
TABLE 3. Corrected item-total correlations for 10 responsive- mean rating for assertiveness (r = .55, p < .01) but not for
ness and 15 assertiveness items. responsiveness. Neither chronological age nor expressive
language age (as determined by standardized tests) was
Development Replication related to conversational assertiveness and responsiveness.
Sample Sample
Item (N = 40) (N = 20)
The correlation between the mean responsiveness and
assertiveness scores was significant (r = .80, p < .001).
Responsiveness Items (n = 10) Test-Retest Reliability. Test-retest reliability for the 20
makes choices .28 .56 children in the replication sample was examined using
answers clarification questions .56 .45 Pearson correlations. This yielded correlations between the
repeats when asked to do so .82 .70 two administrations that were significant, r = .90 and .86,
if known, provides label when asked .29 .53 ps < .001, for both the assertiveness and responsiveness
answers questions .64 .84 mean scores, respectively.
answers connected to questions .59 .78
takes two or more turns .79 .49
response follows adult’s topic .69 .77 Discussion
response matches adult’s topic .54 .57
persists in communicating .37 .66
This report describes the development and statistical
evaluation of a parent-administered rating scale for
Assertiveness Items (n = 15)
responds to adult’s comments .62 .71 TABLE 4. Correlation coefficients for assertive and responsive
requests labels of objects .64 .39 mean scores with chronological age, receptive and expressive
asks questions .13 .72 language ages, and MLU.
asks about unusual events .64 .68
requests assistance .75 .75 Variables CA RLAa ELA MLUb
requests object out of reach .73 .80
requests recurrence .26 .82 Assertiveness .23 .44* .28 .55*
requests object within reach .63 .75 Responsiveness .20 .39* .26 .36
starts conversations .73 .53
seeks adult to initiate play .71 .74 Note. RLA, ELA = receptive, expressive language ages derived
from The Reynell Developmental Language Scales or Sequenced
suggests different play ideas .69 .80
Inventory of Communication Development. MLU = mean length of
suggests changes in activity .63 .68 utterance in morphemes. N = 60.
invites adult to join in play .76 .81 a
Receptive testing could not be completed for three children.
starts familiar games .59 .81 b
Only 26 children with MLU values were included in this analysis.
tells adult things of interest .79 .88 *p < .01

Girolametto 29
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 measuring a young child’s conversational assertiveness and
responsiveness within the context of dyadic interactions.
Analysis of the 10 responsive and 15 assertive item
groupings revealed acceptably high internal consistency
(i.e., alpha coefficients) for both the developmental sample
of 40 children and the replication sample of 20 children.
This indicates that the items within each set correlated well
with each other. Moreover, data collected on a separate
sample indicates that the alpha levels are stable, suggesting
that these results are not due to chance. Because there are
no parallel versions of this rating scale, it was not possible
to compute alternate forms reliability. However, the high
values for the coefficient alpha indicate that the items in
each set share a common underlying construct (deVellis,
1991). Use of the scale within 1 week of the first adminis-
tration by a subset of families revealed very high test-retest
reliability, indicating that parental ratings of conversational
skills were stable when measured twice over a 1-week
period of time.
The validity of the rating scale was determined in two
ways. First, the content validity of the items was maxi-
mized by having a panel of experts review the items for
relevance to the constructs of responsiveness and asser-
tiveness. Items that were judged to have little or no clinical
relevance to these skill areas were deleted from the scale.
Second, the concurrent validity of the scale was established
by correlating the rating scale means with measures of
receptive and expressive language development. Fey and
Leonard (1983) hypothesized that the conversational skills
of children with language impairment may covary with
comprehension ability. Consistent with this hypothesis,
Gertner, Rice, and Hadley (1994) reported that receptive
skills were highly predictive of social status and peer
acceptance in preschoolers. In this study, the mean scores
for responsiveness and assertiveness were significantly
correlated with comprehension measures but not with
standardized measures of expressive language. In addition,
the mean scores for assertiveness also correlated with
MLU for a subset of 26 children who used more than 50
utterances. Although the correlations for receptive lan-
guage age and MLU are significant, they are small in size,
accounting for approximately 16–25% of the variance,
indicating that the parent rating scale contributes informa-
tion that is not fully tapped by these formal measures of
language ability. Thus, the measurement of conversational
skills contributes information to the assessment process
that is not provided by common indices of communication
development.
The results of this study also indicate that responsive-
ness and assertiveness scores are highly related in this
group of young children with language delays (r = .80),
leaving only 36% of the variance unexplained. Such a high
correlation between these two abilities is consistent with
the expectation that conversational skills develop in concert
in young children and are not uniformly asynchronous in
all children who exhibit language impairment. An exami-
nation of the individual profiles of the 60 children in this
study revealed that scores were asynchronous for 8 children:
4 children had assertiveness scores that were at least one
standard deviation higher than their responsiveness scores,
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and for 4 children the reverse was true. Three of these
children are profiled in the Discussion.
Limitations of the Study
Unfortunately, parents are not trained observers, nor are
they unbiased reporters of their child’s performance (Suen
et al., 1995). For these reasons, they may under- or over-
estimate their child’s abilities or level of development. For
example, Hadley and Rice (1993) found that parents over-
estimated their children’s linguistic and conversational
skills on the SLAS in comparison to ratings by a speech-
language pathologist on the same scale. The high mean
scores for assertiveness and responsiveness in the present
study tend to support this finding. Awareness of this
likelihood affords the clinician an opportunity to explore
existing discrepancies between the parent’s perceptions
and their own observations. The importance of this
collaboration is based on the premise that parent’s percep-
tions of their child’s abilities have a direct bearing on how
they treat their child as a conversational partner and how
they interact during parent-focused intervention.
Additional research with larger numbers and with
special populations is required to confirm and extend the
findings of this study. Of particular interest is the need to
use factor analytic techniques to evaluate whether the
assertive and responsive item groupings are measuring
different skills. Further research is also required to confirm
the construct validity of the rating scale with objective
coding of parent-child interactions sampled in a variety of
contexts (e.g., using Fey’s (1986) interaction coding
system). It is also important to establish the level of
interobserver agreement between parent and clinician and
to determine the relationship between parent and clinician
reports of conversational skills. Finally, there is a need to
extend the investigation of conversational skills beyond the
locus of parent-child dyadic interactions to peer interac-
tions. Future research may extend the use of the scale to
discriminate between typical and atypical populations.
Clinical Implications
This scale was developed to profile the conversational
skills of children with language delays whose expressive
language ages were between 12 and 36 months. Because its
development included subjects with diverse etiologies, this
scale can be used with children who have a wide range of
etiological conditions. The major advantage of this scale is
that it is simple and easy for parents to use, requiring a
short administration time. For the clinician who uses a
home-based service delivery model and is interested in
determining the conversational profile of toddlers or young
preschoolers, this scale provides a time-efficient and cost-
effective alternative to coding naturalistic interactions. The
following clinical interpretation of mean scores is based on
the mean scores and standard deviations (see Table 2)
noted in the combined sample of 60 children: (a) below
3.0, skill is absent or infrequent; (b) between 3.0 and 4.4,
skill is emerging; and (c) at 4.5 or greater, skill is well
developed. According to Fey (1986), intervention goals for
November 1997
 children with absent or emerging skills would include
facilitation of responsiveness and/or assertiveness skills,
whereas goals for children whose conversational skills are
well developed would focus on conventional language
goals, such as vocabulary, multiword phrases, morphology,
or syntax.
The clinical usefulness of this recommended interpreta-
tion of the rating scale is demonstrated by comparing the
following profiles of children with language impairment.
Table 5 summarizes the communicative profiles of three
pairs of children who have similar chronological ages and
gender. The first matched pair consists of 2 female children
with language delays of unknown etiology whose expres-
sive and receptive language ages are similar. The gaps
between their chronological ages and language ages are
greater than 12 months. Both children used more than 50
utterances during interaction with their parents and were
within Late Stage I of expressive language development
(Miller, 1981). Despite these similarities, their parents have
reported different profiles of conversational skills. The
ratings for subject 1 indicate her assertiveness skills are
emerging, but that she rarely responds. Treatment goals for
this child should include enhancing her perceived weakness
in social responsiveness to a level that is commensurate
with her conversational assertiveness. In contrast, parental
ratings for subject 2 indicate that both assertive and
responsive skills are emerging as areas of strength.
Therefore, according to Fey (1986), intervention for this
child can focus on developing conventional language goals
such as vocabulary and grammatical forms.
The second matched pair consists of two male children
at the single-word stage of language development who did
not produce a sample of utterances large enough for an
MLU to be calculated. Both children fit the criteria for late
talkers and had fewer than 10 words in their expressive
lexicons. Subject 3 produced 22 single-word utterances in
10 minutes of interaction, whereas subject 4 produced only
1 utterance in the same amount of time. The mean ratings
for subject 3 indicate that both assertive and responsive
skills are emerging. In contrast, subject 4 has conversa-
tional skills that are well developed. Although goals for
these late-talking children would focus on increasing their
lexicons, a further communicative goal for subject 3 would
include encouraging the use of greater conversational
assertiveness and responsiveness in dyadic interactions.
TABLE 5. Characteristics of pairs of subjects matched for chronological age, socioeconomic status, and receptive and expressive
language ages.
ID/Gender Etiology CA RLA
Pair 1 1F unknown 38 25
2F unknown 41 26
Pair 2 3M LT 31 28
4M LT 32 28
Pair 3 5M PDD 35 18
6M DD 35 23
Note. F = female; M = male; LT = late talker; PDD = pervasive developmental disorder; DD = developmental delay; CA = chronological age;
RLA = receptive language age; ELA = expressive language age; MLU = mean length of utterance in morphemes; AMean = mean rating for
assertiveness items; RMean = mean rating for responsiveness items.
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The third pair consisted of two male children whose
etiologies differed: subject 5 was diagnosed as having a
pervasive developmental disorder, whereas subject 6 was
diagnosed as having general developmental delays. Both
children had gaps between their chronological ages and
language ages of 12 months or greater. MLUs could not be
calculated reliably because subject 5 used only of 31 one-
and two-word utterances in his language sample, and
subject 6 used only 36 utterances. Subject 5 received low
ratings for conversational responsiveness and assertive-
ness, indicating that these skills were only rarely used in
interaction. An examination of the individual items for this
child revealed that ratings for 4 items concerning behavior
regulation represented an area of relative strength (mean =
4.0 for items 4, 5, 6, and 7; see Appendix A), contrasting
with much lower ratings for assertive items concerning
behaviors related to requests or comments. Communication
goals for subject 5 would include enhancing his perceived
weaknesses in responsiveness and assertiveness, as well as
using episodes of behavior regulation for teaching new
content-form interactions. In contrast, the parental ratings
for subject 6 indicate that responsive and assertive skills
are emerging, and appropriate communication goals would
include vocabulary and grammatical forms as well as
encouraging the use of greater conversational assertiveness
and responsiveness in dyadic interactions.
As these contrasting profiles indicate, the scale has
potential value for suggesting differential treatment goals for
children who are otherwise similar. The profiles confirm that
children with similar receptive and expressive language skills
can differ widely in terms of their conversational abilities
(Fey, 1986). In addition, these profiles may also point to
different parental interaction techniques within the context of
home-based intervention programs. For example, children
whose responsive and assertive skills are absent or emerging
may respond best to interaction-promoting techniques to
engage them in dyadic interaction (e.g., turn-taking, environ-
mental setups). However, children who are highly assertive
and responsive may benefit more from parental language-
modeling techniques that are designed to promote vocabu-
lary, word-combining, and morphosyntactic development
(e.g., labels, expansions, extensions) (Manolson, 1992;
Weitzman, 1992). Finally, this tool can also facilitate a
collaborative relationship between parent and clinician by
comparing their respective perceptions of the child’s
ELA MLU AMean RMean
24 1.56 3.1 2.3
24 1.62 3.6 3.5
20 n/a 3.0 3.4
20 n/a 4.9 4.5
20 n/a 2.3 2.2
20 n/a 4.2 3.5
Girolametto 31
 conversational skills. Areas of disagreement may be
indicative of differences in contextual experiences with the
child or, alternately, they may signal the need to train
parents to become more observant of their child’s ability to
participate in conversations (Suen et al., 1995).
Conclusion
In summary, this scale provides a valuable parent report
instrument that is quick and easy to administer, and
measures the conversational skills of toddlers and young
preschoolers with expressive language skills between 12
months and 3 years. It accomplishes this by systematically
surveying distinct facets of conversational assertiveness
and responsiveness, and by permitting direct comparison of
mean scores for these two dimensions. The rating scale
profiles the strengths and weaknesses of individual
children and provides unique information that is unavail-
able from other assessment sources. Although parent-
administered rating scales provide information that is
otherwise beyond the scope of traditional assessment
methods, parental perceptions must be considered to be
only one component of any evaluation of a young child’s
communication ability. Thus, parent ratings of conversa-
tional skills must be seen as expanding the concept of
assessment, forming a useful adjunct to clinician-based
assessment rather than replacing such procedures (Hadley
& Rice, 1993). The status of the child may be best repre-
sented when parent perceptions of conversational skills and
information obtained from conventional assessment
methods are pooled (Suen et al., 1995).
Author Note
This study was sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Health, and
National Health and Welfare Canada. The results and conclusions
of this study are those of the author, and no official endorsement by
the Ministry is intended or should be inferred. The author is grateful
to Carolyn Cronk, Associate Professor (University of Montreal), for
assistance in composing, pilot testing and revising items for the
rating scale. Appreciation is extended to Elaine Weitzman and
Clare Watson (The Hanen Centre, Toronto), Karen Laframboise
(Department of Communication Disorders, The Hospital for Sick
Children, Toronto), Farla Klaiman (Play and Learn Nursery School,
Toronto), and Deborah Hayden, Deborah Goshulak, and Margit
Pukonen (Toronto Children’s Centre, Speech Foundation of
Ontario, Toronto) for assistance with item development, subject
recruitment, and assessment of children. The contributions of
Maureen O’Keefe, research officer, Christiane Kyte and Lisa
Henderson, research assistants, and Susan Elgie, statistical
consultant, are gratefully acknowledged. Above all, the author is
deeply appreciative of the families who freely contributed their time
and energy to participate in this study.
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Appendix
Responsive and Assertive Items on Conversational Skills Rating Scale
Instructions
The purpose of this questionnaire is to find out how your child
participates in conversations, and what problems, if any, s/he has.
By conversation, we mean how your child is able to start conversa-
tions, take turns, give information that is on topic, ask questions
and answer questions.
Please use the following scale to rate each statement.
1 2 3 4 5
never almost never sometimes often always
Throughout this questionnaire, we use the words “ask” or “tell”
to describe what your child does in a conversation. Since children
do communicate nonverbally, please interpret “ask” and “tell” to
include gestures, as well as words, phrases, or sentences.
Responsiveness Items (n = 10 )
1 2 3 4 5 1. If I offer my child a choice of two things that s/he
likes, my child tells me which one s/he wants.
1 2 3 4 5 2. If my child knows the name of something s/he tells
me the name when I ask.
1 2 3 4 5 3. When I ask a question, my child answers.
1 2 3 4 5 4. If I ask my child to repeat something I haven’t
understood, s/he does.
1 2 3 4 5 5. In a conversation, my child stays on the same topic
for two or more turns.
1 2 3 4 5 6. My child’s responses follow what I am talking about.
1 2 3 4 5 7. My child’s answers are connected to what I asked.
1 2 3 4 5 8. My child’s sounds/gestures/words match my topic of
conversation with him/her.
1 2 3 4 5 9. When I don’t understand, my child keeps on trying to
get his/her message across.
1 2 3 4 5 10. When I ask my child a question to check what s/he
means, s/he answers me.
Mean Score for Responsive Items ________
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language intervention (pp. 49–80). Baltimore: Brookes.
Weitzman, E. (1992). Learning language and loving it. Avail-
able from the Hanen Resource Centre, #3-390, 252 Bloor St.
West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1V5.
Wetherby, A. M., & Prizant, B. (1993). Communication and
Symbolic Behavior Scales–Normed Edition. Chicago, IL:
Applied Symbolix.
Zimmerman, I. L., Steiner, V. G., & Pond, R. E. (1992).
Preschool Language Scale–3. San Antonio: TX: Harcourt
Brace.
Received April 1, 1997
Accepted June 5, 1997
Contact author: Luigi Girolametto, Department of Speech-
Language Pathology, University of Toronto, 6 Queen’s Park
Crescent West, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3H2.
Email: l.girolametto@utoronto.ca.
Key Words: assessment, communication, preschoolers,
parent involvement, rating scale
Assertiveness Items (n = 15)
1 2 3 4 5 1. When something new or unusual happens, my child
asks me about it.
1 2 3 4 5 2. My child asks questions (using sounds/gestures/
words).
1 2 3 4 5 3. When my child doesn’t know the name of something
we are both looking at, s/he asks me what it is.
1 2 3 4 5 4. If I am holding something my child wants, s/he asks
for it.
1 2 3 4 5 5. When we are playing a fun game (e.g., tickling) and I
suddenly stop, my child asks me for more.
1 2 3 4 5 6. My child asks for help when s/he can’t do something
and I am nearby.
1 2 3 4 5 7. My child asks me for help when s/he wants some-
thing that is out of reach.
1 2 3 4 5 8. When I say something to my child that is not a
question, s/he responds.
1 2 3 4 5 9. My child comes to me to start a game or activity that
we have done before.
1 2 3 4 5 10. My child starts conversations with me during familiar
routines.
1 2 3 4 5 11. My child tells me when s/he wants a change in
activity.
1 2 3 4 5 12. My child asks me to join in his/her play or game.
1 2 3 4 5 13. My child comes to me to tell me about things that
interest him/her.
1 2 3 4 5 14. When we are together, my child gets a game going
that we have done before.
1 2 3 4 5 15. When we’re playing together, my child suggests
different play ideas.
Mean Score for Assertiveness Items ________
Note. For a copy of the scale for parental use, please contact the
author.
Girolametto 33