Articulatory and phonological disorders are common communication disorders among children, and these disorders are generally evaluated by spontaneous speech samples or by formal tests. The latter have good clinical value because testing may provide in...
Articulatory and phonological disorders are common communication disorders among children, and these disorders are generally evaluated by spontaneous speech samples or by formal tests. The latter have good clinical value because testing may provide information in a short period of time and allow for objective comparison of children with their peers. However, the characteristics of Korean phonology are not sufficiently reflected on the previously available tests, and words that are unsuitable for testing children have been included on these tests. Thus, I wanted to develop a new formal test that measures articulatory and phonological development for children, and I then examined its reliability and validity. In addition, the differences of scores across age groups and gender for children, and the age of acquisition of Korean consonants were examined. The new ''Korean Test of Articulation for Children(K-TAC)''investigates 70 speech sounds. These items were selected through examining the characteristics, development and frequency of Korean consonants in order to test for the 19 Korean consonants in various phonetic contexts. A total of 70 speech sounds were elicited through 37 words that preschool children could spontaneously produce. For reliability and validity tests, I collected the data of 222 children from the age of 2;6(years;months) to 6;5. The items that were correctly produced were scored as 1, and those items that were omitted, substituted or distorted were scored as 0. The results are as follows. 1. For internal consistency, the Cronbach''s coefficient regarding the scores of the 222 children was .94 for the total items and .77-.90 if the items were divided by the manner of articulation. 2. For test-retest reliability, the percentage of agreement regarding the scores of 30 children was 77%-100% per item. 3. For interscorer reliability, the percentage of agreement regarding the scores of 30 children was 80%-100% per item. 4. For concurrent validity, the Pearson''s correlation coefficient regarding the percentage of consonants correct(PCC) of 30 children was .90 with the PCC of the ''picture consonant test'', and it was .89 with the PCC of spontaneous speech. To examine the differences across ages and gender, and also to look into the age of acquisition of Korean consonants, children at the border of the age groups or those children with functional articulatory and phonological disorders were excluded, and the resulting data of 160 children were analyzed into 6-month intervals. The results are as follows.1. The PCC revealed the differences across the ages the most clearly. The PCC showed significant differences between the late 2-year-old group and all other groups, between the early 3-year-old group and the late 4-year-old group or older, and between the late 3-year-old group and the late 5-year-old group or older. However, none of the scores showed a significant statistical difference between the boys and girls. 2. Fortis stops p*,t* were mastered at the earliest age. Nasals and stops except syllable-final velars, affricates, syllable-final liquid and glottal fricatives were acquired before the early 3 years of age. Syllable-final velars were acquired at early 4, syllable-initial liquid was acquired at early 5, and alveolar fricatives were acquired at 6. However, if the distorted sounds were scored as correct, the syllable-initial liquid was acquired at early 4, and alveolar fricatives were acquired at early 5. If a test of phonological process could be added to analyze the error patterns and if a norm could be derived through the extension of this test to children of various socioeconomic classes according to the population distribution, this test could become a useful tool in diagnosing children with articulatory and phonological disorders.