Proceedings Fonetik 2009 - Institutionen för lingvistik

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Proceedings, FONETIK 2009, Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm UniversityConfusion matrixes are also available where allerrors are displayed. Such results are useful forthe speech therapist for screening purposes andgive good indications of the child’s difficultiesin perceiving and subsequently producing thesounds of the Swedish language.Description of HöraTal-TrainingA training program consisting of computerizedgame-like exercises has been developed. Twodifferent levels are available. A figure is guidedaround in a maze searching for fruit. Everytime the figure reaches a fruit two words areread by the female voice. The child should decidewhether the two words are the same or not.Correct answers are shown through the numbersof diamonds in the bottom of the screen.There is a time limit for the exercise andobstacles are placed in the figure’s way to jumpover. If the figure smashes an obstacle or if thetime runs out one of three “lives” will be lost. Ifthe child succeeds to collect enough points(diamonds) he/she is passed to the second andmore difficult level.and 7 years of age and twelve were between 9and 19 years of age. Nine children had a moderatehearing impairment and were between 4and 6 years old and fifteen children had a profoundhearing impairment and were between 6and 12 years of age. Four of these had a cochlearimplant and were between 6 and 12years of age. Table 2 shows a summary of thechildren who tried out some of the subtests.Table 2. Description of the children who participatedin the development of the test. Averageof pure-tone hearing threshold levels at500, 1000 and 2000 Hz), age and number ofchildren are shown.Normal-hearingchildren with specificlanguage impairmentHearing-impairedchildren< 60 dBHL > 60 dBHL4-7 yearsof age9-19 yearsof age4-6 years ofage6-12 yearsof ageNo. = 18 No. = 12 No. = 9 No. = 15Figure 4. shows profiles for all 24 hearingimpairedchildren on some subtests. Black barsshow mean results of the whole group andstriped bars show the profile of one child with60 dBHL pure tone average (500, 1000 and2000 Hz.)Number of syllablesGross discrimination of long vowelsVowels differing at low frequenciesVowels differing at high frequenciesVowel quantityDiscrimination of voiced consonantsFigure 3. An example of HöraTal-Training showingone of the mazes with obstacles and fruits to collect.Preliminary resultsStudies of children with special languageimpairment and prelinguallyhearing impaired childrenDuring the development of HöraTal-Test, 54children of different ages and with differenttypes of difficulty in understanding and producingspeech took part in the development andevaluation of the different versions (Öster et al.,1999). Eighteen normally hearing children withspecial language impairment were between 4Discrimination of voiceless consonantsManner of articulationPlace of articulationVoicingNasality0 20 40 60 80 100Figure 4. Results for the hearing-impaired children(N=24). Black bars show average results of thewhole group and striped bars show the result of onechild with 60 dBHL.The result indicates that the child has greaterdifficulties on the whole to perceive importantacoustical differences between speech soundsthan the mean result of the 24 children. Many98
Proceedings, FONETIK 2009, Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm Universityof his results of the subtests were on the levelof guessing (50%). The result might be a goodtype of screening for what the child needs totrain in the speech clinic.The results for the children with specificlanguage impairment showed very large differences.All children had difficulties with severalcontrasts. Especially consonantal features andduration seemed to be difficult for them to perceive.Studies of normal-hearing children withnormal speech developmentTwo studies have been done to receive referencedata for HöraTal-Test from children withnormal hearing and normal speech development.One study reported results from childrenaged between 4;0 and 5;11 years. (Gadeborg &Lundgren, 2008) and the other study (Möllerström& Åkerfeldt, 2008) tested children between6;0 and 7;11 years.In the first study (Gadeborg & Lundgren,2008) 16 four-year-old children and 19 fiveyear-oldchildren participated. One of the conclusionsof this study was that the four-year-oldchildren were not able to pass the test. Only 3of the four-year-old children manage to do thewhole test. The rest of the children didn’t wantto finish the test, were too unconcentrated ordidn’t understand the concept of same/different.13 of the five-year-old children did thewhole test, which are 16 subtests as the firsttwo subtests were used in this study to introducethe test to the children.10090807060504030201003 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18Figure 5. Mean result on 16 subtests (the first twosubtests were used as introduction) for 13 normalhearingfive-year-old children with normal speechdevelopment.The children had high mean scores on the subtests(94,25 % correct answers) which indicatesthat a five-year-old child with normal hearingand normal speech development should receivehigh scores on HöraTal-Test.In the other study (Möllerström & Åkerfeldt,2008) 36 children aged between 6:0 and7:11 years were assessed with all subtests ofHöraTal-Test to provide normative data. Ingeneral, the participants obtained high scoreson all subtests. Seven-year-old participants performedbetter (98,89%) than six-year-olds onaverage (94,28%)100%95%90%85%80%75%70%65%60%55%50%1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18Figure 6. Mean result on all 18 subtests for 18 sixyear-oldnormal-hearing children with normalspeech development (grey bars) and 18 seven-yearoldnormal-hearing children with normal speechdevelopment (black bars).ConclusionsThe preliminary results reported here indicatethat this type of a computerized speech testgives valuable information about which speechsound contrasts a hearing or speech disordedchild has difficulties with. The child’s resultson the different subtests, consisting of bothacoustic and articulatory differences betweencontrasting sounds, form a useful basis as anindividual diagnosis of the child’s difficulties.This can be of great relevance for the work ofthe speech therapists.The intention is that this test should be normalizedto various groups of children so theresult of one child could be compared to groupdata. The test is useful supplementary informationto the pure tone audiogram. Hopefully itwill meet the long-felt need for such a test forearly diagnostic purposes in recommending anddesigning pedagogical habilitation programsfor small children with difficulties in perceivingand producing speech.99
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