[Stability of phoneme discrimination in preschool children].
BACKGROUND
Several tests have been developed to probe phoneme discrimination. However, little is known about the stability of discrimination abilities in preschool children. We investigated the test-retest reliability of a newly developed test material.


METHODS
In a prospective study, 30 preschool children (5.1-6.3 years old) were tested with a time lag between test 1 and test 2 of 1 month. Correlational analysis was carried out using 60 minimal pairs consisting of real words and nonsense syllables. The choice of items took into consideration their frequency in the basic vocabulary as well as phoneme properties such as contrast and position.


RESULTS
High Cronbach's alpha were found for all subscales. For the whole item list, Cronbach's alpha was 0.994. No significant gender specific differences were found.


CONCLUSIONS
These data indicate a high stability of phoneme discrimination abilities in preschool children. Based on these results, the test material can be reliably used to evaluate therapeutic strategies to improve discrimination ability.
Ptok
M
M
Klinik und Poliklinik für Phoniatrie und Pädaudiologie, MH-Hannover. Martin.Ptok@MH-Hannover.de
Büssing
B
B
Schwemmle
C
C
Lichte
C
C
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012737:Sex Factors; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests / Q000379:methods*