The development of a speech sound screening test for European French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children

Abstract

Purpose

This study presents normative data on a screening test, referred to as the Dépistage Rapide Articulation et Phonologie (DRAP), designed to detect European French-speaking children who are at risk for having speech sound disorders.

Method

The test consists of 20 words which contain late-acquired phonological features such as medial and final /r/, consonant clusters, /s/C sequences, and alveolar and post-alveolar fricatives. The test was given to 196 children, monolingual and bilingual, living in Geneva and San Francisco, and ranging in age from 2.11 through to 6.11. Our analyses examined the influence of bilingualism, context (Geneva or San Francisco), gender and age on the test scores and also looked at the influence of these factors on phonological features in the test.

Result

There were no strong effects of bilingualism, context, and gender on the test results but strong effects of age. Validity and internal consistency of the test were in the acceptable range. A focus on phonological features indicated that children had difficulty with final clusters and post-alveolar fricatives.

Conclusion

The study provides encouraging results for the use of this test as a screening measure with French-speaking children.

Keywords:

• Speech sound development
• screening test
• bilingualism

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Kopika Kannathasan, Audrey Burkhardt, Constance Terrail and Tanya Bella Bancaleiro for their help in testing the children and Chloe Girardier for her help in testing the children and in transcribing the data. In addition, we would like to thank the personnel and teachers at «EVE Espèces de vie enfantine du secteur université» and in the Genevan public-school system for their collaboration in the recruitment of children.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2020.1750699.