Abstract
Purpose: Children with speech sound disorders (SSD) find polysyllables difficult; however, routine sampling and measurement of speech accuracy are insufficient to describe polysyllable accuracy and maturity. This study had two aims: (1) compare two speech production tasks and (2) describe polysyllable errors within the Framework of Polysyllable Maturity.Method: Ninety-three preschool children with SSD from the Sound Start Study (4;0–5;5 years) completed the Polysyllable Preschool Test (POP) and the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP-Phonology).Result: Vowel accuracy was significantly different between the POP and the DEAP-Phonology. Polysyllables were analysed using the seven Word-level Analysis of Polysyllables (WAP) error categories: (1) substitution of consonants or vowels (97.8% of children demonstrated common use), (2) deletion of syllables, consonants or vowels (65.6%), (3) distortion of consonants or vowels (0.0%), (4) addition of consonants or vowels (0.0%), (5) alteration of phonotactics (77.4%), (6) alteration of timing (63.4%) and (7) assimilation or alteration of sequence (0.0%). The Framework of Polysyllable Maturity described five levels of maturity based on children’s errors.Conclusions: Polysyllable productions of preschool children with SSD can be analysed and categorised using the WAP and interpreted using the Framework of Polysyllable Maturity.
Highlights
Children’s productions of polysyllables are associated with phonological awareness and literacy abilities at school-age (Larrivee & Catts, 1999), and may assist with the identification of preschool children with speech sound disorders (SSD) who may be at risk of future literacy difficulties (Preston et al, 2013)
This study addresses those needs through an investigation of the polysyllable productions by preschool children with phonologically-based SSD of unknown origin
It is the lack of specified underlying phonological representations which has been linked to poor phonological awareness skills and literacy outcomes (Anthony et al, 2011; Elbro, 1996; Fowler, 1991; Fowler & Swainson, 2004; Swan & Goswami, 1997)
Summary
The children described in this study were participants in the Sound Start Study (McLeod, Baker, McCormack, Wren & Roulstone, 2013-2015) conducted in early childhood centres across Sydney, Australia. Eligibility for participation in stage 2 required that children’s parents or teachers reported concerns about their speech sound development based on the Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS; Glascoe, 2000). Online broad phonetic transcription was completed for all DEAP-Phonology (Dodd et al, 2002) samples and checked by the assessing speech-language pathologist at the end of the assessment session. Manual PCC, PVC, and PPC calculations of the POP (Baker, 2013) were completed using consistent scoring rules to those used within the PROPH+ software where any phoneme omission, deletion, substitution or distortion was recorded as incorrect. Analyses of children’s polysyllable productions on the POP (Baker, 2013) were completed manually by the first author using the WAP (Masso, 2016a; see Supplementary Appendix A). That the presence of different WAP categories of error were not mutually exclusive
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