![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
Abstract
The development of phonological awareness (PA), the ability to reflect on the sound structure of words independent of their meaning, has been extensively explored in English‐speaking children. However, this is not the case for other languages. The aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive PA test battery for German‐speaking preschool children, considering psycholinguistic, linguistic, and cognitive aspects and to carry out analyses of its psychometric properties. Cross‐sectional data from a sample of 55 children (CA 4;0–6;11 years) were collected. Preliminary findings confirm validity and reliability of the test battery, and support previous findings that PA develops from larger to smaller linguistic units. Phoneme‐level tasks were consistently associated with letter knowledge. The new instrument is a promising tool for basic research (e.g. cross‐linguistic comparisons of PA development) as well as for clinical and educational practice (e.g. planning speech and language therapy or literacy‐oriented intervention).
Notes
Notes
1. .70 = sufficient for research purposes, .90 = for individual clinical diagnosis (Nunnally, Citation1978). The four levels of reliability defined by Niemierko (Citation1999) are considered as well: below .50 = unreliable tests; .50–.79 = low reliability but sufficient for comparing groups; .80–.89 = high reliability, good for comparisons between participants; .90 or above = very high reliability, good for comparisons within one participant.
2. To increase statistical power, the analyses were carried out on combined data from the younger and older sub‐group, if a task was administered to both sub‐groups.
3. Following the recommendations of Rosenthal (Citation1991), r‐coefficient was computed to express effect sizes of observed differences, with r>.3 and r>.5 deemed to represent medium and large effects, respectively.
4. x>y: x is easier than y on Friedman test. */**/***: performance is significantly different.