Psychometric properties and gender differences in a lexical task for toddlers aged 19 to 36 months

ABSTRACT: The Words in Game Test (WinG; Cattani et al., 2019) is a picture task designed to assess lexical skills in toddlers. This study aims to verify the psychometric properties and gender differences in two WinG aggregated dimensions. Method: The participants were 336 English speaking children aged 19 to 36 months (Mage = 28.63 months; SD = 4.78), who completed the WinG Test noun and predicate comprehension scales. Of them, 313 also successfully completed the noun and predicate production scales. The correct responses of children were age-standardized in scores of 3-month intervals, then aggregate standard scores of noun and predicate comprehension, and noun and predicate production were calculated. A subgroup of 86 children (Mage = 27.76 months; SD = 4.79) performed the Auditory and Expressive tasks of Preschool Language Scale 4 (PLS-4; Zimmerman et al., 2011), which were considered as reference standards for criterium validity. The psychometric properties of the WinG aggregate comprehension and production dimensions were estimated by reliability, predictive validity, and predictive invariance by gender. Gender differences on the dimensions were also computed. Results: The WinG dimensions obtained excellent reliability (alpha of .93 for Comprehension and of .92 for Production). Predictive validity was confirmed by the significant regression coefficients on PLS-4 Auditory (for Comprehension, beta = .50, p < .001) and Expressive tasks (for Production, beta = .51, p < .001), respectively. Predictive invariance across gender groups was confirmed by the null interaction effects on PLS-4 Auditory (Comprehension*Gender, beta = -.05, p = .95) and PLS-4 Expressive task (Production*Gender, beta =.02, p = .98). Girls significantly outperformed boys in WinG Comprehension, F(1,335) = 14.48, p < .001, and Production scores, F(1,312) = 9.46, p < .001. Conclusions: Findings supported the psychometric adequacy of the WinG Comprehension and Production dimensions and ascertained the better performance of girls (vs. boys).