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Children’s Communication Checklist - Second Edition

The Children’s Communication Checklist – Second Edition, U.S. Edition (CCC-2; Bishop, 2006) is a norm-referenced measure designed to assess children’s communication skills, particularly in the area of pragmatic language. It is used with children 4:0-16:11 who speak in sentences and whose primary language is English.

Available from Pearson

Overview

The Children’s Communication Checklist – Second Edition, U.S. Edition (CCC-2; Bishop, 2006) is a 70-item norm-referenced measure designed to screen communication skills of children 4 years through 16 years, 11 months to determine whether further testing is required. It is particularly useful for identifying pragmatic language impairments in children, identifying children with possible speech and language impairment, and helps to identify those requiring evaluation for autism spectrum disorder. Areas rated by parents or caregivers include pragmatics, syntax, morphology, semantics, and speech. It is used with children who speak in sentences and whose primary language is English. The CCC-2 is administered using a Caregiver Response Form on which the caregiver rates the frequency with which the child demonstrates the communication behavior described in each item. It can be scored by hand or on the computer.

Summary

Age: 4 years 0 months to 16 years 11 months

Time to Administer: 5-10 minutes

Method of Administration: Individually administered, norm- referenced measure of communication skills, with particular focus on pragmatic language. 70-item questionnaire for parent or caregiver.
Yields standard scores (M = 100, SD =15) for composite and index, scaled scores (M = 10, SD = 3) for subtests, percentile ranks, confidence intervals

Subscales: Overall Composite Score: General Communication Composite (GCC)
Index Score: Social Interaction Difference Index (SIDI)
Scales: Speech, Syntax, Semantics, Coherence, Initiation, Scripted Language, Context, Nonverbal Communication, Social Relations, Interests

Autism Related Research

Volden & Phillips (2010)

Age Range: Age Range (in years as given in study) 6–10 years

Sample Size: 32

Topics Addressed:

Comparison of CCC-2 with Test of Pragmatic Language (TOPL), a direct measure of pragmatic language

Outcome:Volden & Phillips (2010)

Researchers compared parent ratings on the CCC-2 to child scores on the TOPL to determine whether the CCC-2 could correctly identify pragmatic language impairment in children with ASD. The CCC-22 identified 13 of the 16 children with ASD as pragmatically impaired, while the TOPL only identified 9. Neither test identified any children in the control group as having pragmatic language impairment.

Conclusion: the CCC-2 is a more sensitive tool than the TOPL for identifying pragmatic language impairment in high-functioning speakers with ASD who also have structural language and nonverbal cognitive scores within typical limits—it is useful for identifying children who might otherwise “slip through the cracks”.

Norbury, Nash, Barid, & Bishop (2004)

Age Range: Two studies: 1st age range = 4-17 years; 2nd age range = 6-10 years

Sample Size: Two studies: 1st n = 87; 2nd n = 139

Topics Addressed:

Validity Reliability

Outcome:Norbury, Nash, Barid, & Bishop (2004)

The CCC-2 distinguished children with communication impairments from non-impaired peers. Further, the social-interaction difference index identified children with disproportionate pragmatic and social difficulties in relation to their structural language impairments. Inter-rater agreement was good (r = 0.79).

Conclusion: the CCC-2 is a useful screening measure, though it is not likely to help in categorical distinctions