Deck 8: Assessment of Childrens Speech

Question 1

Explain the difference between speech intelligibility, speech acceptability, and comprehensibility.

Answer 1

Speech intelligibility, speech acceptability, and comprehensibility are all related to how well a listener can understand and interpret spoken language, but they each refer to slightly different aspects of this process.

Speech intelligibility refers to the ability of a listener to understand the words and sounds being spoken. It is a measure of how clear and distinct the speech is, and whether the listener can accurately perceive the individual words and sounds. Factors that can affect speech intelligibility include the speaker's pronunciation, volume, and the presence of background noise.

Speech acceptability, on the other hand, refers to the overall quality and naturalness of the speech. It is not just about understanding the words, but also about how pleasant and easy the speech is to listen to. This can be influenced by the speaker's tone, rhythm, and fluency, as well as their use of appropriate language and expressions.

Comprehensibility is a broader concept that encompasses both intelligibility and acceptability, as well as the listener's ability to understand the meaning and message of the speech. It includes not only the clarity and naturalness of the speech, but also the coherence and relevance of the content. Factors that can impact comprehensibility include the organization of the speech, the use of relevant examples and explanations, and the speaker's ability to engage the listener's attention and interest.

In summary, speech intelligibility focuses on the clarity and distinctiveness of the spoken words, speech acceptability considers the overall quality and naturalness of the speech, and comprehensibility encompasses both of these aspects as well as the listener's ability to understand and interpret the meaning of the speech.

Question 2

List components of a comprehensive routine assessment for a 4-year-old child referred because of concerns about the child's speech.

Answer 2

A comprehensive routine assessment for a 4-year-old child referred because of concerns about their speech would typically include the following components:

1. Speech and Language Evaluation: This would involve assessing the child's ability to produce speech sounds, understand and use language, and communicate effectively. It may include standardized tests, informal observations, and parent/caregiver reports.

2. Hearing Evaluation: Since hearing difficulties can impact speech development, a thorough assessment of the child's hearing abilities would be important. This may involve a hearing test conducted by an audiologist.

3. Oral Motor Examination: This would involve assessing the child's oral structures and movements to determine if there are any physical factors that may be impacting their speech production.

4. Developmental Assessment: A comprehensive evaluation of the child's overall development, including motor skills, cognitive abilities, and social-emotional development, would be important to understand the broader context of their speech concerns.

5. Case History: Gathering information about the child's medical history, family history, and any relevant environmental factors can provide important context for understanding the child's speech concerns.

6. Consultation with Other Professionals: Depending on the specific concerns, it may be important to involve other professionals such as a pediatrician, psychologist, or occupational therapist to gain a comprehensive understanding of the child's needs.

7. Parent/Caregiver Interview: Speaking with the child's parents or caregivers to understand their concerns, observations, and goals for their child's speech development is an important part of the assessment process.

By conducting a comprehensive assessment that includes these components, speech-language pathologists and other professionals can gain a thorough understanding of the child's speech concerns and develop an appropriate intervention plan.

Question 3

State the three main ways that intelligibility can be assessed.

Answer 3

The three main ways that intelligibility can be assessed are through perceptual evaluation, acoustic analysis, and listener-based assessments.

Perceptual evaluation involves having trained listeners or speech-language pathologists listen to speech samples and rate the overall intelligibility. Acoustic analysis uses technology to measure various acoustic features of speech, such as speech rate, pitch, and intensity, to determine how these factors may impact intelligibility. Listener-based assessments involve having individuals listen to speech samples and provide feedback on how well they understand the speaker. These assessments can be done in a controlled laboratory setting or in more naturalistic environments.

Question 4

Compare and contrast the speech production elements that could be assessed in English-speaking children versus Cantonese-speaking children referred because of concerns about their speech.

Question 5

Why it is important to assess children's consonant accuracy across word positions?

Question 6

Describe how phonological access, phonological working memory, and phonological awareness could be assessed in a 5-year-old child.

Question 7

Provide two examples of each of the following connected speech process: assimilation, elision, and liaison.

Question 8

If a child has suspected flaccid dysarthria, what symptoms would you expect to observe during an assessment of the child's oral musculature structure and function?

Question 9

Compare and contrast the performance of children with phonological impairment versus childhood apraxia of speech on an oral-diadochokinesis (DDK) task.

Question 10

Speech perception assessment tasks vary with respect to the use of single versus multiple speakers. List five other ways that speech perception tests can vary.

Question 11

Discuss how word selection can influence the accuracy of consonant production.

Question 12

Discuss issues to consider when assessing children's productions of vowels and diphthongs.

Question 13

Critically evaluate two or more single-word speech sampling tests with respect to their inclusion of polysyllabic words. Compare and contrast the number of polysyllabic words, their word lengths, word shapes and stress patterns. Explain why it is important to examine children's productions of polysyllables in a comprehensive routine assessment.

Question 14

Explain how you could assess comprehension and production of prosody in 5-year-old children with a moderate-severe phonological impairment and high-functioning autism.

Question 15

Compare and contrast single-word versus connected speech sampling.

Question 16

In light of research by Eisenberg and Hitchcock (2010), discuss the range of contexts to consider when sampling children's consonant inventories (e.g., morpheme contexts, assimilation contexts) and create a word list reflecting the diversity of contexts for sampling the consonants /s, k, ʧ, l/.

Question 17

Using the list of desirable characteristics of sampling tools in

Question 18

Propose a new test for a specific age group and speech element(s). As part of your proposal: create a name for your test, outline the purpose of your test, prepare a test form comprising the list of words / sentences / connected to be sampled, explain how the test stimuli will be collected (e.g., paper-based picture naming task, objects, computer-based task, imitation task, play-based task), describe how the speech sample will be analyzed, and, how your test (does or does not) address each of the desirable sampling tool characteristics described in

Question 19

Do you agree that all children's speech more is accurate when they imitate another person's speech? Why or why not.

Question 20

Prepare an assessment plan for a child with a suspected submucosal cleft, and discuss the implications of not conducting an assessment of the child's oral structure and function.

Question 21

Louis (8;3 years) has childhood dysarthria. Three different methods for assessing Louis' speech intelligibility could include:

A) family members, unfamiliar listeners, and Louis' friends completing a rating scale.
B) the SLP rating speech intelligibility from a single-word measure of highly frequent words, a single-word measure of infrequent words, and a single-word measure of family names.
C) a single-word measure, a connected speech measure, and a rating scale.
D) connected speech ratings, single-word picture naming task, and speech sound stimulability assessment.

Question 22

Giovani (6;4 years) has childhood dysarthria. The person who would rate Giovani's speech as more intelligible would most likely be:

A) his caregiver.
B) an unfamiliar listener.
C) his SLP.
D) a visiting professor.

Question 23

One of the problems with single rating scale measures of speech intelligibility is:

A) that listeners may not understand the speaker adequately enough to rate a child's speech intelligibility.
B) the interdependence of the listener and the speaker, and therefore that listeners will make different judgments.
C) they provide information about functional communicative success.
D) that listeners need extensive training to complete intelligibility rating scales.

Question 24

In contrast with the concepts of speech intelligibility and speech comprehensibility, speech acceptability captures whether a speaker's message:

A) has been successfully conveyed.
B) is different from what is accepted by the linguistic community.
C) can be understood by a variety of listeners.
D) can be successfully understood through conversational repair strategies.

Question 25

When assessing a child's ability to articulate velar consonants, it is important to remember that:

A) velar consonants produced with front vowels may be more accurate than with back vowels.
B) velar consonants produced in consonant clusters may be more accurate than velars produced as singleton consonants.
C) velar consonants produced in polysyllables may be more accurate than velars produced in monosyllables.
D) velar consonants produced with back vowels may be more accurate than with front vowels.

Question 26

Most standardized single-word speech assessments are useful for assessing:

A) the majority of consonants in word-initial, within word, and word-final positions.
B) a variety of consonant clusters.
C) an adequate number of monosyllabic, disyllabic, and polysyllable words.
D) juncture in connected speech.

Question 27

When conducting an assessment with a child with suspected childhood apraxia of speech, it would be particularly important to assess:

A) speech breathing.
B) lexical stress in polysyllables containing a variety of stress patterns.
C) the presence of diplophonia.
D) quality of phonation and loudness.

Question 28

When conducting an assessment with a child to differentially diagnose childhood dysarthria from other types of speech sound disorder, it would be particularly important to assess:

A) oral structure and function including maximum performance tasks.
B) Eustachian tube functioning.
C) speech perception of high frequency consonants.
D) ability to produce polysyllabic words.

Question 29

Which of the following children would you consider assessing the child's ability to produce tones?

A) Giang (4;3 years): multilingual and learning to speak English and Vietnamese.
B) Josef (4;5 years): multilingual and learning to speak English and German.
C) Ryan (4;3 years): monolingual and learning to speak English.
D) Abdul (4;11 years): multilingual and learning to speak Arabic and English.

Question 30

To ensure that a single-word speech assessment is comprehensive:

A) at least two productions of a consonant should be elicited in word-initial and word-final positions, in a monosyllabic and polysyllabic words.
B) at least two productions of a consonant should be elicited in each word position in monosyllabic words.
C) at least four productions of a consonant should be elicited in word-initial position in four different words containing different vowels and syllable shapes.
D) at least two productions of a consonant should be elicited in each word position within different words containing different vowels and syllable shapes.

Question 31

You are conducting a single-word assessment with Lorena (3;9 years) using a picture naming task. You show Lorena the picture of a lion and she says dog. Using the hierarchy of elicitation, your next response would most likely be:

A) "It has four legs like a dog, but this animal has a mane and roars. Have another go. What is it?"
B) "It's a lion, what is it?"
C) "Good job!" (You accept the word dog, because it is also an animal.)
D) "Is it a lion or a bus?"

Question 32

Grunwell's (1987) recommended minimum length of a conversational speech sample is:

A) 100 different words.
B) 50 different words.
C) 200 to 250 different words.
D) 150 different words.

Question 33

The phrase "the brown key" // pronounced as [11ee98c2_3688_65c9_a6de_f72bd4257228_TB9704_11] is a good example of:

A) naturally occurring velar assimilation process, acceptable in connected speech.
B) problematic instance of velar assimilation that should have disappeared during early childhood.
C) naturally occurring connected speech process of liaison, acceptable in connected speech.
D) naturally occurring connected speech process of elision, acceptable in connected speech.

Question 34

The assessment task not appropriate for assessing oromotor (oral motor) function would be:

A) oral diadochokinesis (DDK).
B) maximum performance tasks such as duration of prolonged vowel /a/ and fricatives /s, f/.
C) visual inspection of the integrity of the soft palate with a flashlight.
D) observing a child's alternating productions of /u/ and /i/.

Question 35

If a child was asked to listen to and decide whether each of the following pronunciations ([], [], []) were accurate renditions of the word caterpillar, the child would be engaged in:

A) an ABX task.
B) auditory discrimination of phonotactically legal and illegal forms.
C) auditory discrimination same/different task.
D) auditory lexical discrimination task.

Question 36

Phonological access is typically assessed via:

A) rapid naming tasks.
B) nonword repetition tasks.
C) phonological elision tasks.
D) expressive vocabulary assessments.

Question 37

Lian (14;2 years) has childhood dysarthria associated with cerebral palsy. Which of the following assessment tools would be suitable for assessing Lian's (14;2 years) Activities and Participation?

A) Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter (KiddyCAT) (Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2006).
B) Focus on Children's Outcomes Under Six (FOCUS) (Thomas-Stonell et al., 2012).
C) Speech Participation and Activity Assessment of Children (SPAA-C) (McLeod, 2004).
D) Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Adolescents (CP QOL-Teen) (Davis et al., 2013).

Question 38

Fiona (3;6 years) has a repaired cleft of the soft palate. The assessment task that would be particularly important to consider when conducting an assessment of Fiona's speech production skills would be:

A) polysyllabic words with a variety of stress patterns.
B) articulation of high-pressure consonants (particularly plosives).
C) speech breathing and phonation quality.
D) speech sound stimulability for consonants in error.

Question 39

You are going to see Imogen (4;4 years) for an assessment of her speech production skills. The four methods of speech production assessment you consider include:

A) single-word elicitation, connected speech elicitation, stimulability assessment, and inconsistency/variable assessment.
B) single-word sampling, hearing test, oral structure and function assessment, and language screening.
C) single-word sampling of consonants, single-word sampling of consonant clusters, single-word sampling of polysyllables, and connected speech assessment.
D) connected speech elicitation, monosyllabic-word elicitation, polysyllabic word elicitation, and stimulability assessment.

Question 40

The groups of words that would be the most suitable for conducting an articulation assessment of a 4-year-old English-speaking child's ability to produce the voiced affricate // would be:

A) giraffe, magic, bridge.
B) jeep, J, pajamas, surgeon, margarine, engineer, gingerbread.
C) jam, jellybeans, magic, fire engine, page, orange.
D) janitor, jewelry, adjectives, emergency, marriage, luggage.