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Updated: Jun 20, 2026
Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Speech intelligibility of Flemish children as judged by their parents
N L H Baudonck1, R Buekers, S Gillebert
1Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Audiology and Speech Pathology, University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium. nele.baudonck@ugent.be
Objective:
Reduced intelligibility is a central concern in speech-impaired children, especially for parents. The main purpose of this study was to develop normative data for the intelligibility of Flemish-speaking boys and girls (age 2;06-5;0 years) as judged by their parents. Additionally, the influence of familiarity, gender and age of the child was determined.
Patients And Methods:
Word, sentence and story productions of 163 healthy children (83 boys and 80 girls) between 2;06 and 5;0 years were transcribed by their own parents. Speech intelligibility was determined according to the intelligibility index described by Shriberg. Additionally, a panel of 12 unfamiliar judges listened to the recordings of a subgroup of 24 randomly selected children.
Results:
Speech intelligibility improved with increasing age and was around 90% for children aged 4;6-5;0 years. Boys and girls performed equally on the task. For the intelligibility of words, mothers scored significantly better than unfamiliar listeners did.
Conclusion:
The reported normative speech intelligibility data provide important reference information for speech pathologists who assess child speech. Moreover, it enables them to measure the effect of a specific therapeutic approach and the spontaneous transfer to daily speech.
