J. COMMUN. DISORD.

19 (19861, 251-260

A PROTOCOL FOR THE

ASSESSMENT OF PRELINGUISTIC
INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION
MICHAEL W. CASBY
Audiology and Speech Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

JOELLEN F. CUMPATA
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

This article presents a protocol for the assessment of prelinguistic intentional communication
with young and/or severely language-impaired children. A set of tasks and scoring procedures
are presented for the elicitation of proto-declarative and proto-imperative behaviors. Data
are presented that attest to the reliable utilization of this protocol.

INTRODUCTION
Current interest concerning the pragmatics of communication develop-
ment may be regarded along the following lines of inquiry: prelinguistic
intentional communication, expression of various functions of commu-
nication, the development of discourse and conversational skills, stylistic
variations, and the awareness of presupposition. There has been consid-
erable interest in the first; that is, preverbal and verbal children’s ability
to intentionally communicate. This area of pragmatics is especially ap-
plicable to the assessment of severely language-impaired children. De-
termination of whether or not a severely language-impaired youngster’s
communication is intentional or nonintentional is of significant clinical
importance. The purpose of this article is to present information regarding
the development of intentional communication as well as to present a
protocol for the assessment of intentional communication in young and/
or severely language-impaired children.

Development of Intentional Communication

Several researchers in developmental psycholinguistics have investigated
the origins of illocutionary force or intentional communication in prelin-
guistic children (Bates, Camaioni, and Volterra, 1975; Dore, 1974; Hal-

Address correspondence to Dr. Michael W. Casby, Audiology and Speech Sciences, Mich-
igan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1212.

0 1986 by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 251

52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York. NY 10017 002 l-9924/86/$03.50
252 M. W. CASBY and J. F. CUMPATA

liday, 1975; Harding and Golinkoff, 1979; Sugarman-Bell, 1978). This line
of research has stressed and uniquely demonstrated that intentional com-
munication develops before language.
Perhaps the most influential research along this line of inquiry has been
the research of Bates and her colleagues (Bates, 1976; Bates et al., 1975;
Bates et al., 1977). In brief, the longitudinal research undertaken by Bates
et al. demonstrated that young prelinguistic children communicate two
distinct intentions or performatives. The first has been termed proto-de-
cfarutive and revolves around the child’s use of objects to gain the at-
tention of an adult. The second, the proto-imperative, is the youngster’s
use of adults to obtain objects.
Since the early work of Bates et al., several other investigators have
completed research on the development of prelinguistic communication
in normal and developmentally delayed populations. Note that this later
line of investigation incorporated a significant change in methodology.
Although the earlier research of Bates et al. (1975; 1977), Halliday (1975),
and Dore (1974) relied on observation of naturally occurring acts of in-
tentional communication in young children, the later research utilized a
series of experimental tasks designed to elicit either the proto-imperative
or the proto-declarative (cf. Snyder, 1978, p. 166).
The demonstration by a number of child-language researchers (Snyder,
1978; Curcio, 1978; Dale, 1980; Greenwald and Leonard, 1979; Lobato,
Barrera, and Feldman, 1981; Rowan et al., 1983) as well as by our own
clinical experience that one is able to reliably elicit proto-performative
behavior from language-impaired children is of primary importance to this
article. What follows is a description of a protocol for the elicitation and
scoring of prelinguistic communicative responses of young and/or se-
verely language-impaired children. The procedure is most applicable for
those language-impaired children who are nonverbal, might appear to be
noncommunicative, or have an estimated vocal/verbal repertoire of less
than 50 items. The primary purpose of this protocol is to determine
whether or not the youngster possesses illocutionary force-that is, in-
tentional communication; and at which ordinal level of intentional com-
munication the child responds-that is, gestural, vocal, verbal, or the use
of conventional words.

THE PROTOCOL

The Tasks
The tasks suggested for use in eliciting proto-per-formative behavior are
presented in Table 1. These tasks are based for the most part on the earlier
research of Sugar-man-Bell (1978) and Snyder (1978). Similar tasks have
been used by others (cf. Dale, 1980; Greenwald and Leonard, 1979; Lob-
ato et al., 1981; Rowan et al., 1983).
 253

Table 1. List of Tasks for Eliciting Proto-Performatives. The Lists Are

Presented in a Clinical Data-Sheet Format
ELICITING PROTO-PERFORMATIVES

Name: Date: A.0.B. C.A.:

MA/Test: SMSTG: necl Score: _Tmp Score: _
Declarative Tasks Score Comments Imperative Tasks Score Comments

1. Have child drop 1. Give child a wind-

3-5 blocks into a up toy that runs
can, then offer down.
child a doll.
2. Roll 3-5 balls to 2. Give child a wind-
child, then roll a up music box that
baby bottle to runs down.
child.
3. Roll 3-5 cars to 3. Place a toy in a
child, then roll a clear plastic
ball to child. container and give
to child.
4. Have child line up 4. Place candy in a
3-5 cars, then clear plastic bag
offer child a doll. and hold it out of
child’s reach.
5. Have child stack 5. Give child an
3-5 rings on stick, empty glass, and
then offer a ring hold juice out of
with no hole. child’s reach.
6. Have child drop 6. Hit xylophone
3-5 chips into a with a stick, then
can, then offer give child
child a ball. xylophone, but
hold stick back.
7. Have child hit 7. Give child a baby
xylophone with a doll, but hold back
stick 3-5 times, baby bottle.
then offer child a
block.
8. Have child color 8. Hold a toy up, out
with a crayon, of the child’s
then offer child a reach.
block.
9. Have child stack 9. Hit workbench
3-5 blocks, then with a hammer,
offer child a car. then give child
workbench, but
hold hammer back.
10. Have child feed 10. Give child one ring
doll with a spoon to stack on a stick,
3-5 times, then but hold back
offer child a ball to other rings.
feed.
254 M. W. CASBY and J. F. CUMPATA

Table 2. Suggested Ordinal Scale for Scoring/Coding Early Intentional

Communication

Score Description

0 No response. No communicative behavior toward adult. Looks at or reaches

for object only.
1 Gestural or pointing response toward object and adult. Diectic gaze. Looks at
or reaches for object and looks at adult.
2 Gestural or pointing response toward object or adult, plus vocalization. Ges-
tures or points toward object and vocalizes; gestures or points toward adult
and vocalizes.
3 Verbalization toward adult or object; may be accompanied by a gesture; use
of “proto-words.”
4 Use of conventional linguistic form; true word, phrase, etc.

Declarative Tasks. The declarative tasks are designed so that the child
will attempt to gain an adult’s attention. The basic pattern for each de-
clarative tasks is that first a non-changing sequence is established. For
example, in declarative task number one the established non-changing
sequence is the dropping of blocks into a can. The second major element
of a declarative task is the disruption of the non-changing sequence; for
example, offering the child a doll instead of another block as in number
one. The dependent variable then is the way in which the child indicates
the change in the environment; that is, how does the child intentionally
encode the new information in a particular situation and call the adult’s
attention to it? The child’s proto-declarative behavior can be scored/coded
according to the ordinal scale presented in Table 2.

Imperative Tusks. In examining the imperative tasks it is apparent that

each is so designed to have the child direct an adult to obtain something
for the child. For example, in item one, the child is to attempt to get the
adult to rewind the toy; in item three the child is to have the adult get
the object out of the plastic container. As in the declarative tasks, the
dependent variable is how the child communicates with the adult. This
also may be scored utilizing the ordinal scale presented in Table 2.
In addition to presenting the ten declarative and the ten imperative
tasks, Table 1 also displays a format we have employed in the clinical
application of eliciting proto-performatives. This format allows for a brief
description of the various tasks and the required materials. Information
at the top of the form refers to such client information as name, age, and
so on; additionally, there are spaces for information concerning mental-
age and test used, sensorimotor stage, declarative score, and imperative
score.
PRELINGUISTIC INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION 255

Scoring Procedures
Most systems for scoring/coding young children’s illocutionary force have
been based upon the observational descriptive research of Bates et al.
(1975) and Sugarman-Bell (1978). The ordinal scales used reflect the range
and course of communication development from early abilities of attend-
ing to objects and persons to nascent abilities at verbalization.
Our suggestions for an applied scoring scheme for the proto-imperative
and proto-declarative functions include the five ordinal levels presented
in Table 2. This scoring scheme follows the basic developmental pattern
described by others (Bates et al., 1975; 1977; Harding and Golinkoff, 1979;
Snyder, 1978; Sugarman-Bell, 1978). It allows for the scoring of no re-
sponses and emphasizes the coordination of object and person schemes
(cf. Sugarman-Bell, 1978), as well as the coordination of early gaze and
gestural schemes and vocal/verbal schemes as used communicatively.

Tactics of Scoring. In scoring youngsters’ responses to tasks designed

to elicit illocutionary behavior two tactics are possible. In one the ex-
aminer notes the highest level of performance achieved by the child during
the eliciting procedures. This then would be the assessed level of illo-
cutionary force. For example, the highest level for one child we observed
for this report was a 4, use of a conventional word.
The second scoring format will be demonstrated with the same young-
ster. With this scoring procedure, one assigns a score derived from the
scoring/coding scheme in Table 2 to each of the elicitation tasks and then
calculates a mean for the child. The mean score on the imperative tasks
for this youngster was a 3 (i.e., intentional verbalization). His range of
performance was from 1 to 4.

Reliability and Validity

A noticeable lack of reliability data is obvious in the early descriptive
research regarding prelinguistic communication (cf. Bates et al., 1975;
Dore, 1974; Halliday, 1975). This situation has been changed in the more
recent experimental research. For example, Dale (1980) reported inter-
rater reliability figures of 100% for declarative tasks and 91% for imper-
ative tasks. Harding and Golinkoff (1979) report interrater reliability rang-
ing from 86% to 100% for tasks designed to elicit imperative behavior.
Greenwald and Leonard (1979) report reliability figures of 84% for im-
perative tasks and 94% for declarative tasks. And finally, item-to-item
agreement figures of 90% for declarative and 100% for imperative tasks
were reported by Rowan et al. (1983).
An observation in support of the validity of the concept of prelinguistic
communication and the formalization of it in the form of proto-perfor-
256 M. W. CASBY and 3. F. CUMPATA

matives expressing illocutionary force is the similarity of findings across

a number of independent investigations (cf. Bates et al., 1975; Carter,
1975; Dore, 1974; Halliday, 1975). We presumed that if several different
researchers were observing very similar phenomena independently-that
is, prelinguistic communication-then said phenomena appear to be real.
The interested reader is referred to Bates et al. (1977) for a further review
of this line of inquiry.
This report concerns our own clinical use of tasks designed to elicit
intentional communication. Specifically, it concerns efforts at assessing
the clinical reliability of such a protocol. Toward this purpose, two judges
viewed videotaped sessions of 11 children for whom the pet-formative
elicitation was used. Each judge independently assigned a score of from
0 to 4 (see Table 2) for each attempt at eliciting performative behavior
from individual children. Following this, the scoring of the two judges
was compared on the bases of highest pet-formative level assigned to each
youngster and for the mean performative score earned by each child. The
mean pet-formative score was based on the scores assigned to individual
elicitation trials for each child. Additionally, point-to-point reliability,
split-half reliability, and temporal reliability of the procedure was
examined.

Subjects
Table 3 presents the following data for each of the 11 children tested:
chronological age (CA), mean-length-of-utterance in words (MLU), and
the declarative and imperative scores assigned by Judge 1 (Jl) and Judge
2 (52).
All of the children, except subject number 3, were youngsters who were
seen at a university speech-language-hearing clinic. They all were diag-
nosed as language-impaired using a number of available tests and pro-
cedures (i.e., language sampling; behavioral observation; REEL (Bzoch
and League, 1971); Preschool Language Scale (Zimmerman et al., 1969);
SZCD (Hedrick et al., 1975)), which were administered as part of the
diagnostic process.

RENJLTS
The two judges’ scores for each child’s response to the declarative and
imperative tasks are presented in Table 3. The numbers in the parentheses
under the columns headed Jl and J2 correspond to the mean score as-
signed to each child by the respective judges. The number appearing be-
fore the parenthesis corresponds to the highest level earned by each child.
One can clearly see from these data that interjudge reliability was high.
The two judges never disagreed in their assignment of highest level of
PRELINGUISTIC INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION 257

Table 3. List of Subjects’ Chronological Age, Mean Length of Utterance

(Words), and Judges’ Scores for the Declarative and Imperative Tasks. The
Numbers in the Parentheses Correspond to the Mean Score Assigned to Each
Child. The Numbers Before the Parentheses Correspond to the Highest Level
Attained by Each Child.
Declarative Imperative

S CA MLU Jl 52 Jl 52

1 2;4 <I 2 (0.50) 2 (0.50) 2 (1.25) 2 (1.25)

2 3;l 1.35 4 (1.4) 4 (1.25) 4 (3.0) 4 (2.1)
3 1;6 1.60 4 (1.5) 4 (1.5) 4 (3.1) 4 (3.0)
4 2;3 <l 1 (0.80) 1 (0.80) 1 (0.77) 1 (0.50)
5 2;ll 1.1 2 (0.66) 2 (0.77) 3 (1.9) 3 (2.12)
6 2;8 1.05 4 (3.0) 4 (3.0) 4 (3.25) 4 (3.25)
7 2;4 <l 1 (0.62) 1 (0.62) 1 (0.57)
8 2;l <l 4 (1.45) 4 (1.27) 3 (2.08) : ‘CEZ;
9 2;lO 1.34 4 (4.0) 4 (4.0) 4 (4.0) 4 (4.0)
10 2;2 <l 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (0.3) 0 (0.0)
11 3:3 1.42 1 (0.71) 1 (0.71) 4 (3.61) 4 (3.3)

I 2.45 (1.33) 2.45 (1.31) 2.81 (2.15) 2.72 (2.02)

SD 1.57 (1.18) 1.57 (1.17) 1.32 (1.31) 1.48 (1.30)

functioning for the declarative tasks, and there was virtual perfect agree-
ment for the remaining scores.
A t test revealed no significant differences between judges’ ratings of
highest level attained for the imperative task (t = 1;p > .05;df = 10;
two-tailed). No significant difference was noted for the mean ratings of
Judge 1 and Judge 2 on the declarative tasks (t < 1; p > .05;df = 10;
two-tailed); nor was a significant difference found between the judges’
mean ratings for the imperative tasks (t = 1.6;p > .OS;df = 10; two-
tailed). A sampling of item-to-item reliability for two judges across nine
children yielded a 91% level of agreement for the imperative tasks and a
94% level of agreement for the declarative tasks.
To assess the temporal reliability of the present protocol the procedure
was administered a second time to two children. Both judges had assigned
a level of 1 for the highest level attained on the declarative tasks for one
child on the first administration; this was also the highest level assigned
for this youngster during the second administration. On the first admin-
istration of the imperative tasks this child attained a high score of 1; the
second administration yielded a similar score. The same results were
found for the second child; that is, complete agreement for the highest
level attained on the first and second administration.
The split-half reliability correlation coefficient for the declarative tasks
was .537; it was found to be ,814 for the imperative tasks.
258 M. W. CASBY and J. F. CUMPATA

As a measure of the effectiveness of the two tasks’ eliciting intentional

communication from the youngsters, a comparison was made on the per-
centage of time the children responded to either the declarative tasks or
the imperative tasks. The declarative tasks were effective in eliciting re-
sponses from the children only at a 50% level, whereas the imperative
tasks were successful at eliciting communicative responses from the chil-
dren 88% of the time.
We were interested in noting on which trial out of the ten a child attained
the highest level of performance. To this end, each subject’s protocol was
checked and the trial in which they attained the highest level noted. The
mean for the declarative tasks was 3.9 and the mean for the imperative
was 5.3. That is, the children attained their highest level of responding
for the declarative tasks around the fourth trial and around the fifth trial
for the imperative tasks.
The children tended to receive higher scores on the imperative tasks
than they received on the declarative tasks. However, a t test demon-
strated that no significant difference existed between the means of the
two performatives (t = 1.44; p > .05;df = 20; two-tailed).

DISCUSSION
This research has demonstrated that procedures for the elicitation of in-
tentional communication can be used reliably. The data support the con-
tention that the tasks designed to elicit the imperative function are more
robust than are the declarative tasks. This statement is based on the ob-
servation that the split-half reliability and the children’s rate of responding
was higher for the imperative tasks than they were for the declarative
tasks and on the observation that the children responded more often to
the imperative tasks than they responded to the declarative tasks. These
data suggest that if the goal is to assess the presence of intentional com-
munication in a youngster’s repertoire, then the imperative tasks are more
effective.
Several other researchers -and our own experiences-have indicated
that children more readily respond to the imperative elicitation tasks than
to the declarative tasks (cf. Curcio, 1978; Dale, 1980; Greenwald and
Leonard, 1979; Lobato et al., 1981; Snyder, 1978). We can suggest two
possible reasons for this. The first is that with the imperative tasks there
is an end goal for the child to achieve; for example, candy in the bag, the
toy in the clear plastic container. This state of affairs seems to be more
heavily weighted for a response from a youngster than the declarative
task, in which a child is prompted to respond only by a changing element;
for example, being offered a doll after dropping three to five blocks into
a can. The second reason stems from a task analysis of children’s im-
perative responses. In terms of the temporal order of events in an im-
perative response, the child must first secure an adult’s attention prior
PRELINGUISTIC INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION 259

to directing their behavior. Stated in another way, prior to responding

with an imperative the youngster must perform a declarative; that is,
gaining the adult’s attention precedes using the adult to gain a desired
object.
We would like to emphasize that this is a suggested protocol for the
eliciting of early intentional communication from young and/or severely
language-impaired children. We have demonstrated that such procedures
can be used reliably. Clinicians using such a format as this must bear in
mind that children may also spontaneously demonstrate intentional com-
municative behaviors and that these occurrences should not be ignored.
They should be noted and scored according to the suggested ordinal scale.
We have found that some youngsters tend not to initially respond. This
we believe is the result of task variables; that is, the youngsters do not
quite know what is expected of them. When this is the case, we suggest
that the examiner demonstrate and model what is expected of the child.
For example, the first declarative task directs the examiner to have the
child drop three to five blocks into a can and then offer the youngster a
doll to drop into the can. The initial task of dropping blocks into the can
may need to be modeled for the child, as well as the declarative act of
calling another’s attention to the changing element. When the assessment
commences, the task used during the demonstration should not be used.
Some time ago Leonard et al. (1978) provided a rationale for the use
of nonstandardized measures for the assessment of communication be-
havior in young children. They based their rationale on a comment made
by Siegel (1975) in which he alluded to the principle that the best as-
sessment “instrument” available is a clinician who has some knowledge
of research and theory in language and some experience in describing and
dealing with important communication behaviors (p. 213). We believe that
the protocol set forth in this article adheres to that principle and is an
extension of it.

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