Assessment Procedures

4.3.1 The Assessor

The author of the present thesis assessed all 264 children. The author is a qualified speech-language pathologist in Malaysia, with 4 years clinical experience. The author is familiar with elicitation techniques and is skilful in phonetic transcription.

4.3.2 Equipment

An important methodological consideration for any investigation of child speech is the recording of the data obtained. In the present study, the participants’ speech samples were audio-recorded in order to facilitate transcription and inter-judge reliability checking. The recording was done according to the important recording considerations outlined by Shriberg and Kwiatkowski (1980). These included use of an external microphone placed 6-12 inches from the child’s mouth for a good signal-to-noise ratio and a high-quality audio recorder (recording system in Laptop Inspiron 640m) and microphone (Sony ECM-PC50) that records a wide range of frequencies (100-15,000 Hz) for speech. Participants’ speech was recorded in wav format.

4.3.3 Testing Procedures

4.3.3.1 Testing Environment

Each child was seen individually either at kindergartens, child-care centres, nurseries, schools or the child’s home. The author established rapport with the child prior to testing. The test was administered in a quiet, well-lit room that contained a table or desk and two chairs of appropriate heights. The author and child were seated across the corner of a table or on opposite sides. The stimulus book was clearly visible to both, with the picture plate facing the child and the text facing the assessor. The child was briefed on the reinforcement system prior to the testing. The child needed to complete a 30-step board game, where he/she was allowed to move a step upon the completion of naming one composite picture. Once he completed the board game, he/she was given a sticker as a reward.

4.3.3.2 Recording and Transcribing the Speech Samples

The author did not transcribe the child’s responses on site due to time constraints. As the author needed to elicit large number of stimulus words, a longer time for

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transcription was required. In addition, the participants would have lost their focus if they were asked to attend to the task for too long. Therefore, the assessment process was audio-recorded to enable the transcription after the assessment session. It was also used for reliability sampling. During the testing, the author had to keep an unobstructed view of the child to both hear the child’s articulation clearly.

4.3.3.3 Recording Identifying Information

Before beginning the testing, the author filled in the identifying information about the child on the front of the response form (Appendix O). The author filled in the child’s pseudonym and gender. Later, the author verified the birth date of the child so as to calculate the chronological age. Then, other details such as the name of the child’s school and the form teacher were filled in.

4.3.3.4 Administering the test

Before administering the test, the testing environment was set up as indicated in 4.3.3.1. Then the following administration processes were carried out:

1. The author placed the stimulus book in front of the child. Then, the author read the instructions to the child in a natural, conversational style before the first picture plate was shown. The instruction was “You are going to see some pictures here. I will turn the pages, and I want you to tell me about the pictures.” As the assessor turned the page, the first picture plate faced the child, while the targeted responses, stimulus questions and cuing strategies for plate 1 were on the page facing the author.

2. Then, the author pointed to the item in the plate and asked “What is this?” The question “What is this?” was used with the majority of the pictures to elicit the target word. However, some stimulus questions necessarily differed to get the desired responses for a picture, for example, “What sound does a pig make?”; “Who is this?”; “What colour is this?” etc. The goal of the test was to elicit the desired sounds and words spontaneously. However, if the child did not give the expected reply, the author would use the prompts and cues provided on the author’s pages. The prompting system is described in the section 4.3.3.5.

3. After the author recorded the child’s performance on the response form from the first plate, she turned the page so the next picture plate was facing the child. The author asked the subsequent stimulus questions. The author continued in this same way until all 30 pictures plates were presented and all 195 target words were elicited.

104 4.3.3.5 Prompting

During the testing, the author provided positive feedback to encourage children to cooperate. Children were encouraged to name as many pictures as possible. Spontaneous naming was encouraged at all times while the author pointed to the item in the composite pictures. Sometimes, if the target word was a specific part of the picture (e.g., flower in the hat in Plate 21), the author pointed to the particular item (flower) as she asked the stimulus question. Pointing was also used as a way to draw a child’s attention back to the task. In this way, pointing could be used as a general prompt to redirect the child’s attention and also to elicit a target word. The author could vary the stimulus text slightly from what was given on the author’s page if the author felt that, for a particular child, a slightly different wording of the question would be a more natural and relaxed cue. Many publications (Bankson & Bernthal, 1990; Goldman, et al., 2000) indicate that some target words often need prompts in addition to the stimulus question. For example, some children say TV for television or hippo for hippopotamus. Therefore, the author prompted by saying “Yes, but what else can you call it?” or “Yes, but what is the long name for it?” These prompts were used whenever the child had given a correct label for the picture but not the intended target word. When the author misheard a child response, the author asked the child to repeat a response by saying “I missed that. Please say it again.” The ideal response from children is spontaneous naming without prompting, because spontaneous speech is more representative of children’s habitual speech than prompted words (Bankson & Bernthal, 1996). Nonetheless, because this test was aiming at collecting phonological sample, appropriate cues were used to elicit test items. If children required assistance, they were given cues in the following hierarchy.

I) Semantic cue or description of the word (e.g., “It is something you can sit on”) II) Binary or forced choices with the target word first (e.g., “Is it a chair or a bed?”); the other word choice given (“bed”) contained the same number of syllables as the target response, but with differ phonemic features, preferably from same semantic category.

III) Delayed imitation of the word (e.g., “It’s a chair. What is it?”). IV) Immediate imitation of the word (e.g., “Please say “chair”).

Following the administration of the test, author analyzed the data and entered scores on the record forms for each individual assessment.

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