The MultiModal Imitation Task: a validation study

The MultiModal Imitation Task (MMIT) has been developed to jointly assess the imitation of sentence, prosody, and gestures in children. The MMIT focuses on multimodal language abilities and includes four scores (sentence imitation, prosody imitation, gesture imitation, MMIT total). Psychometric properties of the tool were analyzed on a sample of 235 typically-developing children of 3 to 6 years of age. The results showed good validity and reliability of the tool. The MMIT had excellent internal consistency and interrater reliability, suggesting that the items are coherent and intercorrelated and the scoring system is reliable. The MMIT showed adequate convergent validity with other previously validated and standardized tests to assess sentence and prosody imitation. The relevance and adequacy of the MMIT items were confirmed by expert evaluations. Overall, the MMIT is a valuable, reliable, appropriate, and practical tool for the assessment of multimodal imitation skills in children of preschool and primary school ages.