Development of Phonological Processing Test in Marathi (PPT-M) for Young Adults

Abstract

IntroductionCentral auditory processing and phonological processing are interconnected as they both involve successful intertwining of auditory, cognitive, and language mechanisms. A deficit in the ability to process spoken language can result in CAPD. The aim of this study was to develop a test (PPT-M) to evaluate the level of phonological processing among young Marathi-speaking adults. A second aim was to investigate the difference in the phonological processing of words and non-words.Material and methodsThe PPT-M test included three subtests: phonological awareness, phonological working memory, and phonological retrieval. For the awareness and memory tasks, the stimulus was words and non-words, whereas rapid automatised naming (RAN) of digits and letters was used to assess the retrieval task. Data was collected from 40 young adults aged 18 to 25 years. We recorded accuracy and time taken to complete the tasks.ResultsResults of item analysis suggest that the developed tool has good reliability. No significant gender effect was observed. A stimulus effect was observed for the phonological processing test.ConclusionsThe Phonological Processing Test in Marathi (PPT-M) has good internal consistency and reliability. Words and non-words are processed differently and the time required to respond to both varies. There were no gender differences. In the phonological awareness test, blending and segmentation tasks required more time to complete and had reduced accuracy.