One of the most popular and widely used parent report instruments for assessing early language acquisition is the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI). This study compares normative data of the Italian Words and Sentences complete form (WS-CF) and short form (WS-SF). The samples included 752 children for the WS-CF and 816 children for the WS-SF designed for children aged 18-36 months. The concordance between WS-SF and WS-CF is analyzed in a subgroup of 65 children. The results revealed strong correlations between WS-CF and WS-SF in both lexical and grammar skills as well as strong relationship between lexical and grammar skills. There was a high percentage agreement (97%) between the two forms for scores below the 10th percentile, suggesting that the two forms may be used interchangeably in order to describe vocabulary and grammatical development.
Keywords: Italian MacArthur-Bates CDI; early grammar development; language development; vocabulary size.