Development and Validation of Picture Stimuli for Speech Elicitation in 2-5 Years Old Children

Abstract

Language is considered a tool for communication by humans. In children, there is apparent transition in language acquisition during the developmental phase. During this transition, fluent speech production may be affected in some children. Thereby, requiring language assessment to understand the nature of the language in children. Literature has reported pictures to be the most common referential representa-tions the children are frequently exposed to elicit speech. In this regard, the present study aimed to develop picture stimuli according to Indian context to elicit speech sample by picture description task in 2-5 years old children. The objectives of the study included the development of picture stimuli for children in the age groups of 2-5 years. Total of 95 pictures developed and compiled were given for content validation by teachers, parents and Speech-Language Pathologists, thereby finalizing a total of 75 pictures (25 pictures for each age group). The finalized picture stimuli (25 pictures for respective age groups) were ad-ministered on 30 typically developing children and 15 clinical group children with flu-ency disorder to elicit speech samples. The elicited sample was transcribed and ana-lyzed through Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software. Assess-ing three parameters: Total words completed (TWC), Number of different words (NDW), and Type token ratio (TTR). The study analyzed the trend of word elicitation in both groups. Concluding, the picture description task can elicit a representative speech sam-ple from the developed picture stimuli for the children of the age range 2-5 years. As elicitation of speech sample is an essential key element while assessing an individual with communication disorder.