Kurdish Speech Test: A validation study for children aged 3-5 years

Speech disorder in children is the most common disorder reported by speech and language pathologists in all languages and its evaluation and diagnosis requires valid and reliable tools. This study aimed to develop a Kurdish Speech Test for children aged 3-5 years and to determine its psychometric properties.

The validation included 120 monolingual Kurdish-speaking children aged 3-5 years in the city of Bukan, Iran. Content validity was determined according to expert opinions of Kurdish speech and language pathologists and linguists. Test-retest (one-week interval) and scoring-rescoring by two independent examiners were conducted to determine intra- and inter-rater reliability. The tests ability to discriminate between four age groups (36-60 months) was investigated for construct validity. Differences related to gender were assessed.

Intra- and inter-rater reliability showed no significant difference between the first and second week of administration (p < 0.001) and scoring-rescoring by two independent raters confirmed the reliability of the Kurdish Speech Test (P < 0.001). Discriminating properties, reflecting construct validity showed higher scores with increasing age. No gender differences were found.

The Kurdish Speech Test is a reliable and valid instrument for evaluation of articulation in three-to-five-year-old children. Results suggest that the test is appropriate for clinical assessment of children with speech sound disorders.