Speech Intelligibility of Flemish Children as Judged by Their Parents

Objective: Reduced intelligibility is a central concern in speech-impaired children, especially for parents. The main purpose of this study was to develop normative data for the intelligibility of Flemish-speaking boys and girls (age 2;06–5;0 years) as judged by their parents. Additionally, the infl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Folia phoniatrica et logopaedica 2009-01, Vol.61 (5), p.288-295
Main Authors: Baudonck, N.L.H., Buekers, R., Gillebert, S., Van Lierde, K.M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Child Language
Child, Preschool
Fathers
Female
Humans
Language
Male
Mothers
Narration
Netherlands
Original Paper
Sex Factors
Speech Intelligibility
Vocabulary
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Summary:Objective: Reduced intelligibility is a central concern in speech-impaired children, especially for parents. The main purpose of this study was to develop normative data for the intelligibility of Flemish-speaking boys and girls (age 2;06–5;0 years) as judged by their parents. Additionally, the influence of familiarity, gender and age of the child was determined. Patients and Methods: Word, sentence and story productions of 163 healthy children (83 boys and 80 girls) between 2;06 and 5;0 years were transcribed by their own parents. Speech intelligibility was determined according to the intelligibility index described by Shriberg. Additionally, a panel of 12 unfamiliar judges listened to the recordings of a subgroup of 24 randomly selected children. Results: Speech intelligibility improved with increasing age and was around 90% for children aged 4;6–5;0 years. Boys and girls performed equally on the task. For the intelligibility of words, mothers scored significantly better than unfamiliar listeners did. Conclusion: The reported normative speech intelligibility data provide important reference information for speech pathologists who assess child speech. Moreover, it enables them to measure the effect of a specific therapeutic approach and the spontaneous transfer to daily speech.
ISSN:1021-7762
1421-9972
DOI:10.1159/000235994