Preliminary Speech Perception Performance Profiles of School-Age Children With Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Speech Sound Disorder, and Typical Development

Abstract

Purpose: Limited research exists assessing speech perception in school-age children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS); despite early evidence that speech perception may lead to error-prone motor planning/programming. In this study, we examine speech perception performance in school-age children with and without speech production deficits. Method: Speech perception was assessed using the Wide Range Acoustic Accuracy Scale to determine the just-noticeable difference in discrimination for three consonant–vowel syllable contrasts (/bɑ/−/wɑ/, /dɑ/−/gɑ/, /ɹɑ/−/wɑ/), each varying along a single acoustic parameter for seven children with CAS with rhotic errors, seven children with SSD with rhotic errors, and seven typically developing (TD) children. Results: Findings revealed statistically significant mean differences between perceptual performance of children with CAS when compared to TD children for discrimination of /ɹɑ/−/wɑ/ contrasts. Large effect sizes were also observed for comparisons of /ɹɑ/−/wɑ/ contrasts between children with CAS, SSD, and TD peers. Additionally, large effect sizes were observed for /dɑ/−/gɑ/ contrasts between children with CAS and SSD and TD children despite nonsignificant mean differences in group performance. Conclusions: Overall, mean outcome scores suggest that school-age children with CAS and persistent rhotic errors demonstrated less accurate speech perception skills relative to TD children for the /ɹɑ/−/wɑ/ contrasts. However, the relatively small sample sizes per group limit the extent to which these findings may be generalized to the broader population.