Perceptual measurement of articulatory goodness in young children: Relationships with age, speech sound acquisition, and intelligibility

ABSTRACT

Speech language pathologists regularly use perceptual methods in clinical practice to assess children’s speech. In this study, we examined relationships between measures of speech intelligibility, clinical articulation test results, age, and perceptual ratings of articulatory goodness for children. We also examined the extent to which established measures of intelligibility and clinical articulation test results predicted articulatory goodness ratings, and whether goodness ratings were influenced by intelligibility. A sample of 164 (30–47 months) typically developing children provided speech samples and completed a standardised articulation test. Single word intelligibility scores and ratings of articulatory goodness were gathered from 328 naïve listeners; scores on a standardised articulation test were obtained from each child. Bivariate Pearson correlation, linear regression, and linear mixed effects modelling were used for analysis. Results showed that articulatory goodness ratings had the highest correlation with intelligibility, followed by age, followed by articulation score. Age and clinical articulation scores were both significant predictors of goodness ratings, but articulation scores made only a small contribution to prediction. Articulatory goodness ratings were substantially lower for unintelligible words compared to intelligible words, but articulatory goodness scores increased with age at the same rate for unintelligible and intelligible words. Perceptual ratings of articulatory goodness are sensitive to developmental changes in speech production (regardless of intelligibility) and yield a different kind of information than clinical articulation scores from standardised measures.

KEYWORDS:

• Speech development
• articulation
• speech intelligibility
• motor speech disorders
• assessment of speech disorders

Acknowledgements

We thank the children and their families who participated in this research, and the research staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin – Madison who assisted with data collection and data reduction.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Grant R01DC015653 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, awarded to Katherine C. Hustad. Support was also provided by a core grant to the Waisman Center, U54 HD090256, from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.