Pediatric speech intelligibility test. II. Effect of receptive language age and chronological age.

Performance for Pediatric Speech Intelligibility (PSI) Format I and Format II sentences was significantly different in children between the ages of 3 and 6 years. Performance differences were related to chronological age (CA) and receptive language (RL) ability. However, performance for Format I sentences in children with relatively low RL age and performance for Format II sentences in children with relatively high RL age were equivalent. This observation yielded an algorithm that determines the sentence format as a function of the child's RL age in order to yield 'language equivalent' norms for speech audiometry. Performance for PSI word materials was not influenced by differences in RL skill. CA developmental trends were noted for all speech materials.