Speech perception, vocabulary, and PA in SSD (Benway et al., 2021)

Purpose: Prior studies report conflicting descriptions of the relationships between phonological awareness (PA), vocabulary, and speech perception in preschoolers with speech disorders. This study sought to determine the nature of these relationships in a sample of school-aged children with residual speech sound errors affecting /ɹ/.Method: Participants included 110 children aged 7;0–17;4 (years;months) with residual errors impacting /ɹ/. Data on perceptual acuity and perceptual bias in an /ɹ/ identification task, receptive vocabulary, and PA were obtained. A theoretically and empirically motivated path model was constructed with vocabulary mediating the relationship between two measures of speech perception and PA. Model parameters were determined through maximum likelihood estimation with standard errors that were robust to nonnormality. Monte Carlo simulation was used to examine achieved power at the current sample size.Results: The saturated path model explained 19% of the variance in PA. The direct path between age-adjusted perceptual acuity and PA was significant, as was the direct path between vocabulary and PA. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was no evidence in the current sample that vocabulary skill mediated the relationship between speech perception and PA. Each individual path was adequately powered at the current sample size. Conclusions: The overall model provided evidence for a continued relationship between speech perception, measured by perceptual acuity of the sound in error, and PA in school-aged children with residual speech errors. Thus, measures of speech perception remain relevant to the assessment of school-aged children and adolescents in this population.Supplemental Material S1. Normality statistics for variables entered into the model.Supplemental Material S2. Parameter estimates generated by the model and empirical power analysis. Benway, N. R., Garcia, K., Hitchcock, E., McAllister, T., Leece, M. C., Wang, Q., & Preston, J. L. (2021). Associations between speech perception, vocabulary, and phonological awareness skill in school-aged children with speech sound disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00356

目的：先前的研究报告了关于语音意识（PA）、词汇和语音感知在学龄前言语障碍儿童之间关系的描述存在冲突。本研究旨在确定这些关系在受/ɹ/残留语音错误影响的学龄儿童样本中的本质。方法：参与者包括110名年龄为7;0–17;4岁（年;月）的儿童，其/ɹ/存在残留错误。收集了关于/ɹ/识别任务中的感知敏锐度和感知偏差、接受性词汇和语音意识的数据。构建了一个由词汇在语音感知的两个测量指标与语音意识之间起中介作用的、理论和实证驱动的路径模型。通过最大似然估计确定了模型参数，且标准误差对非正态性具有鲁棒性。使用蒙特卡洛模拟检验了当前样本规模下达到的统计功效。结果：饱和路径模型解释了语音意识方差中的19%。年龄调整后的感知敏锐度与语音意识之间的直接路径是显著的，词汇与语音意识之间的直接路径也是显著的。与我们的假设相反，当前样本中没有证据表明词汇技能在语音感知与语音意识之间起中介作用。在当前样本规模下，每个个体路径都具有足够的统计功效。结论：整体模型为语音感知（通过错误声音的感知敏锐度衡量）与学龄儿童残留语音错误中的语音意识之间的持续关系提供了证据。因此，语音感知的测量对于评估该人群中的学龄儿童和青少年仍然具有重要意义。补充材料S1：模型中变量进入的正态性统计。补充材料S2：模型生成的参数估计和经验功效分析。Benway, N. R., Garcia, K., Hitchcock, E., McAllister, T., Leece, M. C., Wang, Q., & Preston, J. L. (2021). 学龄儿童言语声音障碍中语音感知、词汇和语音意识技能之间的关联。言语、语言和听力研究杂志。在线预发布。https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00356