FAQ's

The OZI-SF is a short, easy-to-use online checklist for parents. It’s a checklist to measure a child’s communication development, for ages 12-30 months. You fill out by answering what words your child understands and/or says, and if they are using any gestures, games or routines. The OZI-SF has been developed 2018-20 by a research team from WSU and Liverpool Hospital. The OZI-SF is an authorised short form of the Australian English Communicative Development Inventory (OZI), which was adapted by MARCS WSU researchers in the 2000s from the original American version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories.

Parents or primary carers of children aged 12-30 months of age

Approximately 12 minutes

That’s great – and for older children that’s very common! The checklist is just a sample of 100 words that children typically learn when they are between 12 and 30 months of age (some words come earlier and some come later). So it’s not an atlas, it’s not meant to cover all the words your child might be learning! It is just a useful checklist that can give you an idea of your child’s communicative development for their age.

Absolutely! Just complete the checklist once for one child, and then complete it separately again for the other child.

Yes, and that’s a good way to track your child’s development. Feel free to use the OZI-SF once every 6 weeks or so, and you should see their progress!

If you have any concerns about your child’s language development, please speak with your GP or a speech pathologist – take the OZI-SF report along!

You can find a local speech pathologist either by calling your local community health centre, speaking with your GP or hopping online. Private speech pathology services can be located either using an online search engine or accessing the Speech Pathology Australia website and using the ‘find a speech pathologist’ function.

We take your privacy very seriously and comply with privacy legislation and high standards of research ethics. Your data are de-identified. This means the personal information you type in, like your child’s name, is converted to a code, and we don’t store your child’s name. We also remove your email address (after the report is automatically sent to you).The remaining data are stored by WSU on secure servers.

The comparison sample is 230 Australian children aged 10.5 months to 31.4 months, whose parent has a TAFE diploma or university degree. Most (141) of the participants were from Sydney.

If your child is learning Australian English at home or at daycare, yes, you can use the OZI-SF. If they are also learning other languages at home, that’s great – see below for FAQ languages in addition to Australian English. If at home your child is mainly learning a dialect other than Australian English (e.g. American English, British English) try searching online for the CDI (Communicative Development Inventory) for that dialect.

Yes! The OZI-SF is designed to suit bilingual and multilingual families too. You can use the OZI-SF if your child knows some of the words in a language other than English. We do not yet know how scores on the OZI-SF differ between multilingual and monolingual kids, but that research is on its way.

Yes, you can use the OZI-SF! Research by an Aboriginal student at WSU is currently underway to find out how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children score on the OZI-SF, compared with the ERLI (Early Language Inventory) – also developed by us at WSU. If you would like to find out more or get involved, please contact the Babylab.

Yes. If you are an early childhood educator or GP you might like to complete it collaboratively with a parent. Or complete it yourself and compare it to what the parent says. The parent will usually be most familiar with the words the child says and understands at home, so it’s best to involve them.