OBJECTIVE: Reduced intelligibility is a central concern in speech-impaired children, especially for parents. The main purpose of this study was to develop normative data for the intelligibility of Flemish-speaking boys and girls (age 2;06-5;0 years) as judged by their parents. Additionally, the influence of familiarity, gender and age of the child was determined. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Word, sentence and story productions of 163 healthy children (83 boys and 80 girls) between 2;06 and 5;0 years were transcribed by their own parents. Speech intelligibility was determined according to the intelligibility index described by Shriberg. Additionally, a panel of 12 unfamiliar judges listened to the recordings of a subgroup of 24 randomly selected children. RESULTS: Speech intelligibility improved with increasing age and was around 90% for children aged 4;6-5;0 years. Boys and girls performed equally on the task. For the intelligibility of words, mothers scored significantly better than unfamiliar listeners did. CONCLUSION: The reported normative speech intelligibility data provide important reference information for speech pathologists who assess child speech. Moreover, it enables them to measure the effect of a specific therapeutic approach and the spontaneous transfer to daily speech.
OBJECTIVE: Reduced intelligibility is a central concern in speech-impaired children, especially for parents. The main purpose of this study was to develop normative data for the intelligibility of Flemish-speaking boys and girls (age 2;06-5;0 years) as judged by their parents. Additionally, the influence of familiarity, gender and age of the child was determined. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Word, sentence and story productions of 163 healthy children (83 boys and 80 girls) between 2;06 and 5;0 years were transcribed by their own parents. Speech intelligibility was determined according to the intelligibility index described by Shriberg. Additionally, a panel of 12 unfamiliar judges listened to the recordings of a subgroup of 24 randomly selected children. RESULTS: Speech intelligibility improved with increasing age and was around 90% for children aged 4;6-5;0 years. Boys and girls performed equally on the task. For the intelligibility of words, mothers scored significantly better than unfamiliar listeners did. CONCLUSION: The reported normative speech intelligibility data provide important reference information for speech pathologists who assess child speech. Moreover, it enables them to measure the effect of a specific therapeutic approach and the spontaneous transfer to daily speech.
Authors: Katherine C Hustad; Ashley Sakash; Phoebe E M Natzke; Aimee Teo Broman; Paul J Rathouz Journal: J Speech Lang Hear Res Date: 2019-05-20 Impact factor: 2.297