Children’s Communication Checklist - 2: a validation study

The Children’s Communication Checklist (Bishop, 1998) was revised (CCC-2 – Bishop, 2003) to provide a general screen for communication disorder and pragmatic/social-interaction deficits. Families of 77 children attending full-time special education for specific language impairment, pragmatic language impairments or autistic spectrum disorders completed the questionnaire. Data were also available from 23 typically developing children. The CCC-2 distinguished children with communication impairments from non-impaired peers. Furthermore, the Social-Interaction Deviance Composite (SIDC) of the CCC-2 identified children with disproportionate pragmatic and social difficulties in relation to their structural language. It is concluded that the CCC-2 provides a useful screening measure for communication impairment and can be helpful in identifying children with more pervasive disorders. However, there was substantial overlap amongst groups, suggesting that it is unrealistic to use the CCC-2 to make categorical distinctions on this continuum of disorder.