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Creating sustainable services: Minority world SLPs in majority world contexts
126
JCPSLP
Volume 18, Number 3 2016
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
KEYWORDS
ASSESSMENT
CHILDREN
SPEECH
VIETNAMESE
Ben Pha. m
(top), Sharynne
McLeod (centre),
and Xuan Thi
Thanh Le
Development of the
Vietnamese Speech
Assessment
Ben Pha. m, Sharynne McLeod, and Xuan Thi Thanh Le
journal articles, unpublished dissertations, and on websites
(Cameron & Watt, 2006; Cheng, 1991; Hwa-Froelich,
Hodson, & Edwards, 2002; Nguy
ễ
n, 2011; Nguy
ễ
n &
Pha. m, 2014; Pham, 2009; Tang & Barlow, 2006; V
ũ
& Đ
ặ
ng, 2004), as well as tools developed by staff in a
particular clinic/school/hospital/university for use in their
own clinical practice (The Children’s Hospital No. 1, 2013;
Ducote, n.d.; Lê, 2013; West, 2000). Many of these tools
are created to assess children who speak the southern
Vietnamese dialect in Viet Nam, or other countries, and
have limitations when used with people who speak the
northern and central dialects of Vietnamese. This situation
necessitated the development of the Vietnamese Speech
Assessment (VSA) for research and clinical practice across
Viet Nam and in other countries.
This paper outlines the creation of the VSA using
psychometric standards for assessment in two stages:
conceptualisation and operationalisation (Frytak, 2000)
and has been written using the guidelines for test creation
from McLeod (2012b). The VSA has been developed via
collaboration between Ben Pha. m, Xuan Thi Thanh Le
and Sharynne McLeod, the Trinh Foundation and Charles
Sturt University in Viet Nam and Australia (see Figure
1). Creation of the VSA would not be possible without
extensive international collaboration between authors in
these majority- and minority-world contexts drawing on the
authors’ expertise in Vietnamese phonetics and phonology,
Vietnamese dialectal variants, child development, and test
development. The authors met face-to-face on numerous
occasions to listen to the production of consonants, vowels
and tones by Vietnamese speakers, and to debate the
benefits of different word choices. The three authors also
undertook pilot testing and initial operationalisation of the
tool together in Australia and Viet Nam, each transcribing,
then discussing children’s production of the words. The
VSA would not have the same level of rigour if the three
authors had not collaborated and cooperated extensively
during the conceptualisation stage.
Stage 1. Conceptualisation of the
Vietnamese Speech Assessment
Conceptualisation of an assessment tool refers to
determining its purpose and scope, ensuring it measures
what it intends to do through its properties and features
(Frytak, 2000). Conceptualisation of an assessment begins
with a statement of its purpose, intended population, target
skill, and scope (McLeod, 2012b).
Vietnamese is the official language of over 92
million people in Viet Nam and nearly four
million diaspora including in Australia, USA,
and Canada. To date, there are no
standardised speech assessments for
Vietnamese children. This paper outlines the
development of the Vietnamese Speech
Assessment (VSA) through collaboration
between researchers in Viet Nam and
Australia. The VSA contains all Vietnamese
consonants, vowels and tones in at least two
words with different sequence constraints.
Further, the VSA was developed to be within
the vocabulary range of young children,
frequently used by Vietnamese people in
different regions, picturable, and either a
noun or verb. Picture stimuli were identified
and the test was piloted with Vietnamese
speakers of different ages who spoke
different Vietnamese dialects. A score sheet
was designed to include acceptable dialectal
pronunciations, and to enable calculation of
percentage of consonants/vowels/
semivowels/tones correct and presence of
phonological processes (patterns). The VSA
is currently undergoing norming and
standardisation.
V
ietnamese is the official language spoken by over
92 million people in Viet Nam and by nearly four
million diaspora including in Australia, USA, and
Canada. The government of Viet Nam has implemented
“The Developmental Standards for Children aged 5”, and
standard 15, item 65 is “to speak clearly” (The Viet Nam
Ministry of Education and Training, 2010). Vietnamese
professionals report they assess Vietnamese children’s
speech production by using informal measures to
determine who meets the developmental standards (The
Viet Nam Institute of Educational Sciences, 2014). To date,
there are no standardised norm-referenced assessments
of Vietnamese children’s speech production (McLeod,
2012a; McLeod & Verdon, 2014), which has resulted in
the creation of informal tools presented in book chapters,
THIS ARTICLE
HAS BEEN
PEER-
REVIEWED