Development and Evaluation of the Speech Intelligibility Probe for Children with Cleft Palate Version 5 (SIP-CCLP Ver. 5)

• Author / Creator

  Gotzke, Carrie L.

• The Speech Intelligibility Probe for Children with Cleft Palate (SIP-CCLP) is a computer-mediated word imitation measure of intelligibility that targets the speech error patterns of English-speaking children with cleft palate. Previous evaluations provided support for SIP-CCLP as a reliable and valid measure of speech intelligibility for children with cleft palate but revisions were recommended to improve its sensitivity, efficiency, utility and rigour for research and clinical applications. This thesis describes the construction and validation of SIP-CCLP Ver. 5 as a discriminative health status measure of intelligibility for children with cleft palate. Audio recordings of SIP-CCLP form 1 and 2 words, conversational speech and imitated sentences were obtained from 21 children with cleft palate, ranging in age from 37 to 84 months. Fourteen children completed a second set of SIP-CCLP recordings. Recordings were played back to listeners (i.e., 108 university students) who completed four word identification tasks independently. The percentage of words identified correctly served as the intelligibility score for each task. The 100-word conversational speech sample was transcribed phonetically to determine percentage of consonants correct (PCC). Two expert speech-language pathologists rated each child’s hypernasality and voice severity from a standard speech sample. Reliability coefficients were greater than 0.9 for all evaluations (i.e., test-retest, alternate forms, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability; internal consistency), indicating that SIP-CCLP scores are stable when differentiating between individuals over time, forms, listeners, and items. Validity was assessed by examining the relationships of SIP-CCLP scores to 1) scores from other measures of intelligibility and 2) measures of related constructs. SIP-CCLP scores were correlated positively with intelligibility scores obtained from a 100-word conversational sample and an imitated sentence task. SIP-CCLP scores were correlated positively with PCC and negatively with hypernasality ratings. Between 51% and 69% of the variance in SIP-CCLP scores was explained by these two predictors. Based on these results, SIP-CCLP Ver. 5 meets or surpasses established criteria for reliability and validity as a discriminative measure of speech intelligibility. It fills an identified need for an efficient, child-specific measure of intelligibility, with established rigour for children with cleft palate as young as three years of age.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Speech intelligibility
  • Cleft palate
  • Children

• Graduation date

  Fall 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3ZQ49

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.