Validating the Use of Percent Grammatical Utterances for Assessing Mandarin-Speaking Children’s Grammatical Skill: Evidence From 3-Year-Olds

Purpose: The study examined the use of percent grammatical utterances (PGUfor assessing grammatical skills in Mandarin-speaking 3-year-old children. Method: Participants were 30 Mandarin-speaking 3-year-olds with typicadevelopment. Language samples were collected in two visits for each chusing a picture description task. Children were asked to talk about 16 pictuin response to questions and prompts at each visit. Pictures for the langusample collection were identical across the visits. PGUs were computed, athe grammatical errors that children produced in the task were coded and talfor error types at each visit. Test–retest reliability, split-half reliability, and ccurrent criterion validity of PGUs were evaluated. Results: The mean PGU level was approximately 78% at Visit 1 and 81% Visit 2, both of which were significantly below the mastery level (i.e., 90%). correlation coefficient for test–retest reliability of PGU was large (r = .70, p < .01); the correlation coefficient for split-half reliability was medium at Visit 1 .47, p < .01) and large (r = .65, p < .01) at Visit 2. In addition, the corrcoefficient for concurrent criterion validity of PGU was medium for both vis(rs ≥ .35, ps ≤ .03). The ranking and proportion of each error type were simbetween the visits. Conclusion: The initial evidence from psychometric properties suggests thaPGU computed from the picture description task is a reliable and valid measfor evaluating grammatical skills in Mandarin-speaking 3-year-old children.