Development and measurement of psychometric properties of the Persian test of speech consistency in children with typical development

Abstract

The current research pursues the study of developing the Persian test of speech consistency and investigating speech consistency in normally developing children in Iran. After developing the Persian test of speech consistency, the obtained speech samples of 317 participants (163 girls and 154 boys) were analyzed. This test of consistency includes 27 items. Experts’ consensus over the characteristics of the Persian test of speech consistency was above 85%. Different age groups had statistically significant differences for the mean scores of the variable responses (p < .001), consistent correct (p < .001), and consistent incorrect responses (p = .007) in the Persian test of speech consistency. Also, there was a high value for the inter-rater reliability (ICC = .88, p < .001) as well as the moderate value for the test-retest reliability (ICC = .89, p < .001). The Persian test of speech consistency is regarded as a reliable and valid scale for measuring the speech consistency in Persian-speaking children. Future studies are proposed to investigate the speech consistency in Persian-speaking children with various kinds of speech sound disorders.

Keywords:

• Inconsistency
• Persian
• test
• validity
• reliability

Statement of ethics

The Ethical Committee of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences approved this research by the reference code of (801.91..30082.1). The participants’ parents were given a consent form to complete and sign for the recruitment of their children in the study. Moreover, explanations were provided for the parents about the aim of the current work.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the children, their parents, and the teachers in nursery schools who assisted us in conducting the present research. We also extend our deep gratitude to Welfare Organization for its cooperation in sampling procedure.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interests to declare.