[Development and testing of the Heidelberg preschool screening for auditory perception and speech processing (HVS)]

There is a lack of standardized and quick tests assessing auditory perception and language processing in preschool children in German. Therefore we developed a screening for auditory perception and speech and language processing, analyzed it statistically and evaluated it in 180 children from 15 preschools. The screening comprises 7 tasks: auditory short-term memory, phonological analyses of word-initial sounds, syllable segmentation, phonological discrimination,articulatory sequencing, semantic versus phonological classification, and rhyming. Results indicated objectivity and reliability of the test. The comparison of subgroups showed that children having conductive hearing loss, deficits of articulation, deficits of language, and children otherwise considered to be unsuitable for school enrollment all showed significantly poorer achievements in different subtests than children without these problems.