Elaboración de un instrumento para la evaluación de la pragmática en niños y niñas menores de cuatro años

Abstract

Introduction: ç The scarcity of instruments for the assessment of pragmatic skills in early care, contextualized in our environment, together with the difficulty of pragmatic assessment itself, hinders the detection and classification of disorders that occur with such alterations. Therefore, a study is carried out based on pragmatic development profiles prior to the age of 4 years. Objectives: 1.- To adapt The Pragmatics Profile of Dewart and Summers (1975) to Spanish, providing it with a quantitative response scale. 2.- To elaborate an instrument of direct execution for the Evaluation of Pragmatic Development (EDPRA) that covers the period between 6 and 48 months. Material and Method: For this purpose, a sample of children (N= 298) aged between 6 and 48 months was selected. From the total group, four subgroups were formed according to their chronological age, both for the process of adaptation to Spanish of the TPP (n=190) and for the elaboration of the EDPRA (n=298). All participants received the EDPRA, but only a portion of the families correctly completed the TPP. Results: The results of the analyses (Discriminant and Exploratory Factor Analysis fundamentally) of both tests showed good reliability and adequate psychometric properties, although the latent structure of the TPP does not correspond to the axes described in its theoretical model. Conclusions: Having analyzed the properties of both tests, it seems that both can complement each other adequately. The TPP is a reliable instrument to obtain a measure of pragmatic development perceived by parents, whose biases can be corrected through a direct measure such as that provided by the EDPRA. The EDPRA can be considered a screening instrument to detect early delays or deviations in pragmatic development, which can facilitate the adoption of therapeutic measures in early development.