Establishing the validity of abbreviated developmental scale (ADS-1)criterion, regarding the language and hearing domain for 4- to 5-year-old children in the city of Popayan(2012).This work involved a validation study of diagnostic tests for 96 children whose language and hearing were assessed by ADS-1 within a growth and development program and through speech therapy assessment as gold standard (Reynell norm-referenced test for measuring expressive and receptive language skills and tone audiometry and otoacoustic emissions for assessing hearing). The validity of the scale’s criterion was determined as was the correlation between both tests using the Kappa value. SPSS-19 was used for analyzing the results.The ADS-1 scale had 54 % sensitivity, 42 % specificity, 87 %positive predictive value, 11 % negative predictive value and K=-0.0 concordance.The ADS-1 scale has little predictive ability for correctly classifying a patient as being really ill and/or the healthy as being really sound. This value did not coincide with the prevalence found (87.5%). Poor agreement between both methods did not allow it to be classified as a valid instrument for use as a screening test for the early detection of language and hearing disorders in children aged 4 to 5 years old.