Relationship between enunciative signs of language acquisition and language assessment through the Bayley III scale at 24 months

PURPOSE: To analyze the correlation between the results obtained on the SEAL and the Bayley III Scale and compare babies with and without delay in language acquisition at 24 months concerning the performance obtained by them and their mothers on the SEAL from 3 to 24 months. METHODS: The SEAL collection consists of 15-minute footages of 45 babies aged from 3 to 24 months old in interaction with their mothers, who were assessed by two trained speech therapists for the use of the SEAL. At 24 months, the 45 babies were assessed using the Bayley III Scale and the item language was selected to classify them with and without delay. These results were statistically analyzed through a Pearson’s correlation test and a Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: In average, eighteen signs of typical development as we obtained, while a mean of 12 delay signs were found. By comparing the presence and absence of signs between the groups with and without delay in language acquisition, eight signs from the baby and one from the mother differed statistically in the sample. The analysis using the SEAL for cases of delay showed that the maternal factor was as important as the infant factor to understand the babies’ language functioning. CONCLUSION: There was a significant correlation between the SEAL performance from 3 to 24 months and the language outcome at 24 months assessed by the Bayley III Scale in this sample.