New Arrivals: Speech and Language Assessment for Internationally Adopted Infants and Toddlers within the First Months Home

ABSTRACT

Speech-language pathologists are increasingly requested to assess development in newly arrived internationally adopted children. These infants and toddlers typically arrive home with developmental delays and a lack of proficiency in any language, making it difficult to make objective service delivery decisions. This article reports the results of speech and language assessments for a group of 28 children aged 12 to 24 months who were newly adopted from Eastern Europe. Most of the children did well, with average English language standard scores within normal limits on the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scale-Developmental Profile. The majority of children were also rapidly learning to understand and produce English words as measured on the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. These findings were used to develop peer-based infant-toddler guidelines for early speech and language intervention. Using these guidelines, 65% of the internationally adopted children did not require early intervention, 7% were borderline and recommended for follow-up assessments within 2 to 3 months, and 28% were recommended for speech and language early intervention.

International adoption - orphanage - infant-toddler - language development - bilingual language - early intervention

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