The German Early Lexical Development Inventory ELAN in Parent's Opinion

Abstract

The ELAN is a valid and reliable German questionnaire scale (parent report measure) which aims to assess the size of expressive vocabulary of children aged 16 to 26 months. It is used as a screening tool to detect late talkers. The ELAN also meets the quality criteria usefulness, economy and standardization. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the acceptance of the ELAN by a specially designed standardized evaluation questionnaire consisting of 17 items with a closed response-set and 2 items focusing on suggestions for improvement (open response-set). ELAN and evaluation questionnaire were filled out by 123 primary care givers for monolingual German children growing up in Heidelberg and Stuttgart and their surrounding areas (68 boys, 55 girls; mean age: 21.8; SD 3.3 months). The number of missing answers was low, on average 5.9 %. About half of the participants (n = 61) needed 15 minutes or less to fill out the ELAN. The majority felt the ELAN was well-structured (96 %) and neither too long nor too short. 98 % found the wording easily understandable. 87 % of the participants enjoyed filling it out. 76 % believed that the ELAN recorded the lexical abilities of a child correctly. 22 % became uncertain whether their child's verbal development is age-adequate. The ELAN helped 37 % to better assess the verbal abilities of their child. 58 % got an idea of the words which young children are able to use. 67 % rated the diagnostic utility of the ELAN for early detection of retarded language development as "very good" or "good", and only 3 % as "bad". 67 % preferred to apply the ELAN at the German pediatric screening U7, but would not like to fill it out in the waiting room (77 %), but at home (69 %) to reduce stress experience. It can be concluded that the ELAN was accepted by its respondents.