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Development of the Childhood Nonverbal Communication Scale

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Childhood Nonverbal Communication Scale (CNCS) to assess nonverbal communication skills in children from birth to 18 months old. An extensive review of existing research provided evidence used to generate items representative of nonverbal communication behaviors. The final version of the CNCS includes 37 items divided in two dimensions (CNCS-1 and CNCS-2) showing high content validity (item-rated content validity index ≥ 0.75). The scale was administered to 428 Iranian Persian-speaking children 3 to 18 months old with normal development. According to the findings, the CNCS showed strong internal consistency (KR-20 = 0.965). Further, it had good convergent validity based on a significant correlation between total scores and the results of the Persian version of the Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE-P) (r = 0.5, P < 0.01). Therefore, the CNCS is a promising tool for measuring nonverbal communication in Iranian children from birth to 18 months of age.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. M. Franchini for her helpful comments on the manuscript, M. Vahab for her valuable general assistant, Dr. Z. Shayan for her careful statistical advice, Mr. H. Argasi at the Research Consultation Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for his valuable assistance in language editing an earlier version of the manuscript, and K. Shashok (AuthorAID in the Eastern) for further language editing of a later version of the manuscript. Special thanks are expressed to the families and children who participated in the research. This work was supported by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.

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  1. Department of Speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Abiverdi 1, Chamran Blvd., P.O. Box: 71345-1733, Shiraz, Iran

    Mohammad Majid Oryadi-Zanjani

  2. Rehabilitation Sciences Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Mohammad Majid Oryadi-Zanjani

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Correspondence to Mohammad Majid Oryadi-Zanjani.

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Appendix 1

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Table 6 Childhood Nonverbal Communication Scale
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Oryadi-Zanjani, M.M. Development of the Childhood Nonverbal Communication Scale. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 1238–1248 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04356-8

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