Macarthur Communicative Development Inventories CDIS

Professionals can learn a great deal about young children's emerging language and communication skills by consulting the ones who know the children best: their parents or caregivers. Now, with the CDIs and their Spanish adaptation, the Inventarios, professionals can tap into parents' invaluable day-to-day knowledge -- and respond to legislation that requires parental input in child evaluations. Top language researchers developed these standardized, parent-completed report forms -- CDIs for English speakers and Inventarios for Spanish speakers -- designing the forms to focus on current behaviors and on salient emergent skills and behaviors that parents can recognize and track. Both the CDIs and the Inventarios have three components:
-- A "words and gestures" form. The CDI: Words and Gestures is for use with children ages 8-16 months, while Inventario I: Primeras Palabras y Gestos is for 8-18 months. In both the forms, the first part prompts parents to document the child's understanding of hundreds of early vocabulary items separated into semantic categories