ORCID

Abstract

PURPOSE: Assessing early language skills through parental report is a cost-effective way to screen for language delays when resources are scarce. A pan-Arabic lexeme approach was tested by extending the Egyptian adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) to Jordan and Palestine in infants aged 8-30 months (Arabic CDI Toddler). We also developed a version for children aged 30-48 months (Arabic CDI Child) in the three countries. A fair representation of the population in terms of geographical spread, maternal education, and environmental context was obtained through stratified sampling. METHOD: The Arabic CDI Toddler, containing a 100-word list with dialect variations from the three countries, was completed online or face-to-face by 427 Egyptian (including 259 from Abdelwahab et al., 2021), 455 Jordanian, and 440 Palestinian mothers. The Arabic CDI Child, comprising a 100-word list, 23 simple/complex pairs of sentences, and 11 language use questions, was completed by 836 Egyptian parents, 318 Jordanians, and 304 Palestinians. Nongovernmental organizations facilitated contact with harder-to-reach families due to illiteracy or limited internet access. RESULTS: Child gender and maternal education effects were found for the Arabic CDI Toddler in Jordan and Palestine, while maternal education effects were generally found across the three countries and all sections of the Arabic CDI Child. For the Arabic CDI Toddler, norms were computed for Jordan and Palestine, separately from Egypt. For the Arabic CDI Child, separate norms were provided for each country. CONCLUSIONS: The production of a unique set of norms was contained to two countries for 8- to 30-month-old children, highlighting the limits of a pan-Arabic lexeme approach to the development of parental reports. The Arabic CDI Toddler and CDI Child have the potential to be useful to parents, Early Years professionals, and researchers who need to assess children's Arabic knowledge for detecting those at risk of poor language outcomes and in need of intervention.

Publication Date

2025-07-08

Publication Title

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Volume

68

Issue

7

ISSN

1092-4388

Acceptance Date

2025-03-19

Deposit Date

2025-03-28

Funding

This project was funded by the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ES/T003995/1). We are very grateful to our funder for having supported us extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic, Boris Johnson’s govern-ment’s cuts to overseas funding in 2021, and the 2023 Palestinian–Israeli conflict. Our thoughts go to the Palestinian families in Gaza who contributed their time to this pro-ject and might not be here anymore today. We are grateful to the families and the NGOs who have supported this work. We are also grateful to the Research Assistants in the three countries: Nour Alaryan, Juliette Hindaileh, Esraa Hamdy, Mariam Hamdy, Iman Saraj, Alaa El-ebbiny, and Enjood Abu Qoleh. A special thank you to Mårten Eriksson for his invaluable input at the earliest stages of this project.

First Page

3239

Last Page

3290

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