Adaptation of the "Language Use Inventory" to Brazilian Portuguese.

Abstract

Purpose: To adapt the "Language Use Inventory" parent -report measure for Brazilian Portuguese children.

Methods: A total of 254 Brazilian parents and children participated in the survey, comprising five groups within an age range from 18 to 47 months. The translated and pre-adapted version of the Language Use Inventory (LUI) measure into Brazilian Portuguese was used in online and in person format. Analysis of Cronbach's alpha coefficients was used to verify the internal reliability, and Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used to analyze the form of completion, sex, child's age group, and parents' education level.

Results: Comparative analyses between the completion methods did not identify significant differences between the printed and online formats. The Brazilian Portuguese version of the LUI demonstrated high internal consistency with respect to all subscales and with respect to the entire measure (α>0.99). Girls obtained higher scores than boys for Part 2 (p<0.001) and Part 3 (p=0.001) and on the Total LUI score (p=0.001). Children whose parents had more years of schooling obtained higher scores in Parts 2 and 3.

Conclusion: The similarity of results related to internal reliability and developmental trends of the Brazilian Portuguese version of LUI as compared with the original English version, supports its use as a reliable instrument to assess pragmatic language functioning in Brazilian preschoolers.