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UK Bilingual Toddlers Assessment Tool (UKBTAT)

The UK Bilingual Toddlers Assessment Tool (UKBTAT) was designed by a team of researchers from British Universities (University of Plymouth, with the collaboration of the University of Bangor, University of Birmingham, University of Kent, University of Liverpool and University of Oxford), in a project funded by the ESRC. It is meant to be used by practitioners in the UK who wish to assess the language of a bilingual child aged 2 years learning British English and any Additional Language.

To be used safely, the practitioner must:

  • Open an account on the website through the main page and provide contact details. Approval will be granted individually by the Plymouth Babylab team;
  • Go through a a few short video tutorials (see the FAQ / Tutorial Page) and sign an informed consent form regarding the use of the site;
  • Understand that she/he is fully responsible for an ethical use of the data generated through the UKBTAT.

Children's language can be assessed with the UKBTAT if:

  • They are aged 2 years, plus or minus 3 weeks at the moment of testing;
  • They are raised in the UK, and learn British English plus an Additional Language;
  • They have not been diagnosed with a developmental disorder, and are not more than 6 weeks premature.

The UKBTAT consists of:

  • A list of familiar English words that parents check to estimate if their child knows them and/or say them;
  • A list of familiar Additional Language words that parents check to estimate if their child knows them and/or say them;
  • A Language Exposure Questionnaire (LEQ) that the practitioner fills in while asking questions to the parent(s);
  • A final report generated by the UKBTAT site, giving percentile estimates of the child's vocabulary in each language, in production and comprehension.

If the Additional Language is one of the following: Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Dutch, European Portuguese, French, German, Greek, Hindi/Urdu, Italian, Polish and Welsh, then the UKBTAT will provide a reliable estimate of English and the Additional Language.

If the Additional Language is not in the above list, then the UKBTAT will provide a reliable estimate of English, and an estimate of the Additional Language to be interpreted with caution.

If the child is trilingual or more, then the recommendation is to:

  • Determine with the parents which one of the Additional Languages is spoken more often around the child in a typical week. In case of a draw, we recommend to select the language spoken by the mother as the most common Additional Language.
  • Fill in the English CDI and the CDI in the Additional Language.
  • Take the trilingual version of the LEQ.
  • The UKBTAT will generate a final report giving percentile estimates of the child's vocabulary in English and the Additional Language, but this needs to be interpreted with caution.