Single Word Articulation Test

Towards development of a single word articulation test in Indian English: Preliminary observations from 3-to- 5 year old children

Introduction

Single-word articulation test which requires the individual to name single words in response to picture stimuli (spontaneous speech samples) have been an integral part of the articulation and phonological assessment of an individual’s speech sound production system. The obtained responses are then compared with standard, norm-referenced scores provided by these tests to determine if the child has age-appropriate errors or not (Bauman-Waengler, 2009). Several single word articulation tests have been developed in Indian languages. These include Test of Articulation in Kannada (Babu, Bettagiri, & Rathna,

English also represents the Language for Learning (L4L) as children begin literacy instruction or reading and writing instructions in English rather than in the primary language spoken at home and attend primary schools with English as their medium of instruction. In the routine clinical practice, it is observed that most parents prefer and wish that assessments of speech and language skills be conducted in English. This necessitates assessment of speech sound production skills of children in English as well as their home language. Research directed at examining speech sound acquisition in English within the Indian context among children speaking English and different Indian languages are lacking. Word lists and tests used for articulation testing in English among children have been developed for western populations. Anecdotal experience with the use of these test material within the Indian context indicate high measures of item difficulty such that several items are unfamiliar to children and are difficult for them to recognize resulting in an imitated production. Item difficulty relates to accurate spontaneous naming irrespective of the accuracy of articulation. Spontaneous naming with as little cueing is desired as it is much closer to habitual speech than other elicited techniques such as asking questions or

However, children above 3;6 years were able to give increased spontaneous responses likely due to increased exposure to English. Majority of the words in three lists were produced spontaneously by greater than 50% of children in the current study. Few words may be identified for elicitation through verbal cues and others may be reviewed for modifications in picture.

Articulation performance of children increased with age as seen from age effects for the three lists of words. There was no difference in the performance of children between the two lists of consonants [t (109) = 0.847, p= 0.399)] and they were significantly correlated with each other (r=0.89, p<0.001) suggesting construct validity of the two lists.

Majority of the consonants were acquired by the age of 3;6 years except fricatives /s/ and /v/ which were acquired by 4 years of age. Production of several phonemes reflected individual variations of Indian English. These included phoneme for /ʒ/ which was consistently substituted by its voiceless counterpart /ʃ/. Similarly, /z/ in final position was produced variably as /z/ or /s/. Dental fricatives were replaced by dental plosives. Order of acquisition of clusters revealed that although several two-consonant clusters emerged in the youngest age cohort, they were mastered only after age 4. All clusters reached 90% accuracy criteria by the age of 4;6 – 5;0