Page Last Updated: May 15, 2026

MLDS🔗

Multilingual Language Development Screener

Table Name	`ncl_ch_mlds`
Construct	Multilingual Exposure
Study Visits	V03, V04, V05, V07
Administration	Child-specific: Yes Respondent: Primary Caregiver Method: Self-administered remotely (3-10 min estimated duration). If the caregiver does not complete the assessment remotely, it is conducted at the visit to document the child’s language exposure environments. The instrument can be administered by an HBCD Study team member in-person or via video as needed.
Quality Control	Monitor frequency of decline to answer and completeness during data collection (initial data showed that about 10% of questionnaires were not complete).

This measure assesses a child’s exposure to language to guide the selection of appropriate measures for their next in-person study visit. It estimates the percentage of time the child is exposed to languages in caregiving environments, based on caregiver reports. These estimates are approximate and also may not account for all languages the child encounters. The measure does not evaluate or quantify the child’s interactions or their expressive or receptive language skills in a given language, but rather provides an estimate of the time spent in environments where specific languages are spoken.

Instrument Details🔗

The Multilingual Language Development Screener (MLDS) consists of questionnaires evaluating parental concerns about the child’s hearing and the presence of English, Spanish, or other languages in the child’s home and childcare environments. The measure estimates the child’s language exposure and identifies hearing concerns through forced-choice questions and sliding scales, which assess the percentage of time spent in various environments (i.e., home, daycare, other family member household, babysitter). Up to ten non-parental childcare arrangements were sampled.

Designed specifically for HBCD, this measure informs assessment teams conducting neurocognitive and language evaluations. Responses help determine whether assessments are conducted in English or Spanish and identify potential challenges such as hearing impairments or other languages. Caregivers select their child’s language preference (English or Spanish) for in-person tasks like the NIH Baby Toolbox, Bayley-4, or Deferred Imitation. For the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI), an algorithm determines whether it is administered in English, Spanish, both, or not at all.

Total days per week and total hours per day were calculated for up to 10 non-parental childcare arrangements (Daycare, With Babysitter, With other family members outside of the household, and Other non-parental childcare arrangement). The language environment for each non-parental childcare arrangement was described based on the percentage of Spanish vs English spoken in the environment:

Only Spanish OR Only English: ≥30% of language AND <30% of the other language is spoken
Both Spanish & English: ≥30% of both languages are spoken
Neither: <30% of Spanish and <30% English spoken

The total frequency of Spanish and English was computed by multiplying the percentage of English and Spanish language provided per environment by the total hours per week in both the home and other care environments. The values are provided for home and for the overall total child experience, combining home and other care environments.