Asking parents about babbling at 10 months produced valid answers but did not predict language screening result 2 years later

Aim We evaluated the concurrent and predictive validity of questions to parents of 10-month-old children about babbling. Methods Children with at least one native Swedish-speaking parent were eligible for inclusion in this prospective longitudinal study. The parents were asked three questions about babbling at a routine healthcare visit. If parents reported a lack of canonical babbling (CB), children were assessed by a speech and language pathologist to evaluate the questions' concurrent validity. We then examined whether the babbling questions predicted which children would fail the routine language screening at 2.5/3 years. Results Fifteen of the 1126 children lacked CB according to the parent responses and the expert assessment confirmed 12 of these cases, providing a concurrent validity of 80%. The sensitivity to predict routine language screening was 8% (95% confidence interval 3-17), and the positive predictive value was 40% (95% confidence interval 20%-65%). However, only six of the children lacking CB at 10 months were among the 71 children who failed later language screening. Conclusion This study suggests that the babbling questions could be included in the 10-month surveillance at the child health services as valid measures of babbling development, but they cannot predict language screening result at 2.5/3 years.