Whole word measures in bilingual children with speech sound disorders

Abstract

Phonological acquisition traditionally has been measured using constructs that focus on segments rather than the whole words. Findings from recent research have suggested whole-word productions be evaluated using measures such as phonological mean length of utterance (pMLU) and the proportion of whole-word proximity (PWP). These measures have been investigated mainly in typically-developing children, but their use with children with speech sound disorders has been limited. This study compares PMLU, PWP, and consonant accuracy in Spanish–English bilinguals with speech sound disorders (SSD) to age-matched monolingual peers. This study relates directly to the type of research that Adele Miccio favoured. First, it is focusing on bilingual children. For the past 5 years, she has been the principal investigator of a grant developing a comprehensive phonological assessment tool for bilingual speakers. Second, during her career, Miccio advocated using multiple analyses to gauge the phonological skills of children, especially those with speech sound disorders. Her work in stimulability is evidence of that perspective. This study examines one ‘raditional’ measure (consonant accuracy) and two newer ones (pMLU and PWP), thereby broadening the analyses of phonological skills in bilingual children with SSD and thus carrying out multiple analyses, just as Miccio recommended throughout her illustrious career.

Keywords:

• bilingualism
• speech disorders
• whole word measures

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the children and their parents who participated in this study. Additionally, we would also like to thank Dana Pavlotzky for help in conducting the reliability analyses.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1. Throughout the paper, the term speech sound disorder will be used to refer to those with segmental- and/or pattern-based errors. Also, for consistency, that term will be used here even if a different term was used in the original study.