Vocal measures by sample length (McDaniel & Brady, 2022)

Purpose: This study examines the effects of communication sample length on the reliability and convergent validity of six vocal measures for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with minimal verbal skills. The results are expected to inform recommendations for the length of communication samples for clinical and research purposes.
Method: Participants included 31 children with ASD (24 boys and seven girls; Mage = 6;7 [years;months], SD = 17 months) with minimal verbal skills. We coded six vocal measures that focus on vocalizations and early word productions from the Communication Complexity Scale (CCS) scripted administration protocol. To evaluate reliability of different sample lengths, we calculated intraclass correlation coefficients between the full CCS sample and 1-, 3-, 7-, 10-, and 20-min samples. To examine convergent validity, we calculated correlations between the six vocal measures for each sample length.
Results: When coded from 10-min samples from the beginning of the CCS, all of the vocal measures exhibit adequate reliability with the full CCS sample. Some vocal measures exhibit adequate reliability with samples as short as 3 min. For convergent validity, all of the correlations between the vocal measures exceed .40 and are statistically significant for the 10-min samples except for some of the correlations with the proportion of communicative vocalizations. Similar results were found for other sample lengths.
Conclusion: Findings support coding 10-min segments from the CCS scripted administration protocol to evaluate the vocal development skills of children with ASD with minimal verbal skills.

Supplemental Material S1. Pearson product moment correlations between vocal measures by sample length.

McDaniel, J., & Brady, N. C. (2022). The influence of communication sample length on reliability and convergent validity of vocal measures derived from the Communication Complexity Scale. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00010

目的：本研究旨在探讨沟通样本长度对自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童有限言语技能下六项语音测量指标的可靠性与收敛效度的影响。预期研究结果将为临床和研究目的下沟通样本长度的推荐提供信息。
方法：研究对象包括31名具有有限言语技能的自闭症谱系障碍儿童（其中24名男童和7名女童；平均年龄为6岁7个月，标准差为17个月）。我们从沟通复杂度量表（CCS）的脚本执行方案中编码了六项专注于语音和早期词语生产的语音测量指标。为了评估不同样本长度的可靠性，我们计算了完整CCS样本与1分钟、3分钟、7分钟、10分钟和20分钟样本之间的类内相关系数。为了检验收敛效度，我们计算了每个样本长度下六项语音测量指标之间的相关性。
结果：从CCS脚本执行方案的起始10分钟样本中编码的语音测量指标均显示出与完整CCS样本的充分可靠性。部分语音测量指标在与样本长度仅为3分钟的情况下也显示出充分的可靠性。对于收敛效度，所有语音测量指标之间的相关系数均超过0.40，且在10分钟样本中除了一些与沟通性语音比例的相关性外，均具有统计学意义。对于其他样本长度，也发现了类似的结果。
结论：研究结果支持从CCS脚本执行方案中编码10分钟段来评估具有有限言语技能的自闭症谱系障碍儿童的语音发展技能。
补充材料S1：不同样本长度下语音测量指标的皮尔逊积矩相关系数。
McDaniel, J., & Brady, N. C. (2022). 沟通样本长度对从沟通复杂度量表中衍生出的语音测量指标的可靠性与收敛效度的影响。言语、语言和听力研究杂志。在线预发表。https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00010