Intelligibility of 4-year-old children with and without cerebral palsy.
OBJECTIVE
The authors examined speech intelligibility in typically developing (TD) children and 3 groups of children with cerebral palsy (CP) who were classified into speech/language profile groups following Hustad, Gorton, and Lee (2010). Questions addressed differences in transcription intelligibility scores among groups, the effects of utterance length on intelligibility, the relationship between ordinal ratings of intelligibility and orthographic transcription intelligibility scores, and the difference between parent and naïve listener ordinal ratings.


METHODS
Speech samples varying in length from 1 to 7 words were elicited from 23 children with CP ( M (age) = 54.3 months) and 20 TD children ( M (age) = 55.1 months). Two hundred fifteen naïve listeners made orthographic transcriptions and ordinal ratings of intelligibility. Parent ordinal ratings of intelligibility were obtained from a previous study (Hustad et al., 2010).


RESULTS
Intelligibility varied with speech/language profile group and utterance length, with different patterns observed by profile group. Ratings of intelligibility by parents and naïve listeners did not differ, and both were highly correlated with transcription intelligibility scores.


CONCLUSIONS
Intelligibility was reduced for all groups of children with CP relative to TD children, suggesting the importance of speech-language intervention and the need for research investigating variables associated with changes in intelligibility in children.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, USA. kchustad@wisc.edu
Katherine C
KC
Hustad
Brynn
B
Schueler
Laurel
L
Schultz
Caitlin
C
DuHadway
D002547:Cerebral Palsy / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013068:Speech Production Measurement