An item analysis of Australian English words for an articulation and phonological test for children aged 2 to 7 years

Abstract

Item analysis information is rarely given for English tests of children's articulation and phonology. Therefore, there is little information about the sensitivity and speci® city measures of these tests. Item di culty and item discrimination scores were derived for 199 words that were varied for phonotactic shape, syllable numbers and stress. Fifty-nine normally speaking children and 40 children with speech impairments in the age range of 2± 9 years named pictures depicting the above words. Most words had satisfactory item di culty scores indicating ease of naming. The words that best diOE erentiated between children with and without speech impairment were monosyllabic words containing word-initial and / or word-® nal clusters and polysyllabic words, that is, words of three or more syllables. Disyllabic and polysyllabic words beginning with a weak syllable also seemed to be highly discriminating. Monosyllabic words with a CV or CVC shape that contained the earlier developing sounds had unacceptable measures of item discrimination. It is recommended that the use of tests that contain a preponderance of monosyllabic words with a CVC shape and the normative data derived from them be critically reviewed, especially for children aged four years and older.

Non‐word repetition performance in Slovak‐speaking children with and without SLI: novel scoring methods

“…Allen and Hawkins () found that 3‐year‐old children mastered vowels in stressed syllables but not unstressed syllables before 4–5 years of age. This was confirmed more recently by James () who also reported that the acquisition of vowels continues after the age of 3. In addition, errors in vowel systems have been noted in children with language impairment (Stoel‐Gammon and Herrington ).…”

Swahili speech development: preliminary normative data from typically developing pre‐school children in Tanzania

“…Vowel acquisition has also been investigated in a range of languages although it is not always included in normative studies perhaps due to an assumption that vowel acquisition occurs early and with fewer difficulties than that of consonants. In English children master vowels in stressed syllables by 3 years (Bankson and Bernthal ) and in unstressed syllables refinement may continue until 5 years (James ). There are no published studies that detail the development of the Swahili inventory, although there are studies that focus on development of other indigenous African languages such as isiXhosa (Mowrer and Burger , Pascoe and Smouse ), Sesotho (Demuth ) and Zulu (Naidoo et al .…”

Speech characteristics of 8-year-old children: Findings from a prospective population study

“…Whilst a definitive cut off age for the definition of PSD has not been agreed, it has generally been applied to children of approximately age 8 and above. This is logical given that speech acquisition is generally considered to be complete by this age (Dodd, Holm, Hua & Crosbie, 2003;James, 2001;Smit, 1993aSmit, , 1993b. Moreover, Shriberg, Fourakis, Hall, Karlsson, Lohmeier, McSweeny et al (2010) justify a cut off between age 8 and 9 on the basis that children whose speech disorder continues beyond this age are small in number but more at risk for long term persistence and associated sequelae, sometimes into adulthood.…”