Assessing children's speech using picture-naming: The influence of differing phonological variables on some speech outcomes.
PURPOSE
Sometimes, children's speech is judged as typical on picture-naming tests and not on other speech tests, even other picture-naming tests. This study attempts to explain this observation by examining the impact of increasing the numbers of polysyllabic words in a picture-naming test on the outcomes of percentages of consonants and vowels correct and phonological processes.


METHOD
The participants were 283 randomly sampled, typically-developing children, aged 3-7-years. These Australian English speakers named pictures, yielding ∼166 selected words, varied for syllable number, stress and shape, which repeatedly sampled all consonants and vowels of Australian English.


RESULT
Most mismatches occurred in di- and polysyllabic words, with few in monosyllabic words: the usual words in picture-naming speech tests. Significant age effects existed for percentages of consonants and vowels correct and for 12 of the 16 phonological processes investigated. Many age effects were present at 7 years; later than often reported.


CONCLUSION
These findings imply that additional di- and polysyllabic words add value to routine speech testing. Further, children, especially school children, who "pass" speech tests dominated by monosyllabic words may benefit from further examination of their productions of di- and polysyllabic words before finalizing clinical judgements about their speech status.
['James|Deborah G H|DG|', 'Ferguson|Wendy A|WA|', 'Butcher|Andrew|A|']
D002648:Child D002663:Child Language D002675:Child, Preschool D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D013062:Speech Articulation Tests D013064:Speech Disorders
Assessment children phonology