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Assessment
58
ACQ
Volume 13, Number 2 2011
ACQ
uiring Knowledge in Speech, Language and Hearing
Elise Baker (top)
and Natalie
Munro
This article
has been
peer-
reviewed
Keywords
assessment
children
nonword
repetition
polysyllables
change to assessment practice is based on an assumption
that polysyllables have the potential to (a) provide insight
into the underlying processing difficulties that children with
speech sound disorders (SSD) or specific language
impairment (SLI) might have with the encoding, storage,
and/or retrieval of spoken words (e.g., Contour & McCauley,
2000; Sutherland & Gillon, 2005); (b) help with the
differential diagnosis of late talkers who are at risk of future
speech, language, or literacy difficulties (e.g., Richardson,
Kulju, Neiminen, & Torvelainen, 2009); and (c) improve the
identification of children at risk of future literacy difficulties
who otherwise might be deemed to have typically
developing speech or a mild speech difficulty when
assessed on a measure of consonant accuracy (e.g.,
Nathan & Simpson, 2001). Clinically, the application of this
recommendation to everyday SP practice raises some
fundamental questions with respect to age of assessment.
Specifically, at what age should and/or could children’s
pronunciation of polysyllables be reliably assessed? Should
SPs wait until children are of preschool or school age to
assess production of polysyllables? Is it better or indeed
possible to evaluate children’s productions of polysyllables
during the toddler years (between the age of approximately
1;0 to 3;0 years)?
According to James, van Doorn, and McLeod (2008),
children’s acquisition of polysyllabic words is gradual and
protracted, with refinement of syllable timing continuing
into adolescence. This does not mean, however, that
young children do not produce polysyllabic words. Children
with typical development have been observed to produce
polysyllables in their first 50 words (e.g., Savinainen-
Makkonen, 2000). Although children’s initial attempts may
be truncated (e.g., helicopter /
hɛlikɒptə
/ as [
kɒtə
]) (Kehoe &
Stoel-Gammon, 1997), the number of polysyllables in which
all syllables are represented (rather than deleted) changes
from 0% to about 50% by 2;3 years (James, 2006). Clearly,
if routine assessment of children’s pronunciations of
polysyllables is to be conducted, it would seem appropriate
to begin that evaluation with children from the time they
start to talk – during the toddler years. The purpose of this
paper is to explore the literature on the potential clinical
value of assessing toddlers’ productions of polysyllables
(both real words and imitated nonwords), and to review
currently available experimental tasks and clinical resources
for assessing Australian-English-speaking toddlers’
productions of polysyllabic real- and nonwords.
Historically, routine assessment of children’s
speech has focused on consonant accuracy
(e.g., ability to pronounce /k/ in
car
,
bucket
,
and
bike
). The discovery of a link between the
ability to produce polysyllables and speech,
language, phonological processing, and later
literacy abilities suggests that speech
pathologists (SPs) need to extend their focus
from consonant accuracy to children’s ability
to produce polysyllables, considering syllable
number, shape, and stress pattern accuracy.
This paper reviews a range of experimental
tasks and clinical tools that SPs could use to
examine toddlers’ productions of polysyllabic
real- and nonwords. Given that assessment
of toddlers’ productions of polysyllables is a
relatively new area of research, SPs are
encouraged to assess toddlers’ polysyllable
productions within the context of a
comprehensive communication
assessment.
A
s children learn to speak, they not only learn how
to articulate the individual consonants and vowels
in their ambient language, but also to pronounce
words of varying syllable shapes, word lengths, and stress
patterns. Historically, routine assessment of children’s
speech has focused on their ability to accurately articulate
consonants in initial, medial, and final word positions,
typically in mono– and/or disyllabic words (e.g.,
pronunciation of /k/ in
car
,
bucket
, and
bike
). The discovery
of a link between the ability to produce polysyllables (words
of three or more syllables) and speech, language,
phonological processing, and later literacy abilities (e.g.,
Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998; Sutherland & Gillon, 2005),
suggests that speech pathologists (SPs) need to extend
their focus from consonant accuracy to one that considers
children’s abilities to produce polysyllables, including their
ability to match syllable number, syllable shape, and stress
pattern in real words such as
helicopter
and
spaghetti
, and
in nonwords such as /
pɜduləmeɪp
/ and /
doʊpəlut
/ (from
Stokes & Klee, 2009b). The impetus for this recommended
An overview of resources
for assessing toddlers’
productions of polysyllables
Elise Baker and Natalie Munro