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The PraxiFala Battery: A diagnostic accuracy study
Marizete Ilha Ceron1, Marileda Barichello Gubiani1, Karina Carlesso Pagliarin1
1Speech, Language and Hearing Department, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Brazil.
Insights
The PraxiFala Battery demonstrates good sensitivity and specificity for verbal, nonverbal, and diadochokinetic tasks in assessing speech disorders in children. However, it may not accurately differentiate between typical speech and phonological disorder groups.
Area of Science:
- Speech-Language Pathology
- Pediatric Audiology
- Developmental Pediatrics
Background:
- Accurate assessment of speech disorders in children is crucial for timely intervention.
- The PraxiFala Battery is a tool used to evaluate speech production and related skills.
- Establishing the psychometric properties of assessment tools is essential for their clinical utility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the sensitivity and specificity of the PraxiFala Battery.
- To establish cutoff points for the PraxiFala Battery using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
- To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the PraxiFala Battery for differentiating speech sound disorders.
Main Methods:
- A sample of 308 Brazilian-speaking children aged 3-7 years was assessed.
- Children included those with typical speech development, phonological disorder (PD), and motor speech disorders (MSD).
- The PraxiFala Battery, comprising verbal, nonverbal, and diadochokinetic tasks, was administered, and ROC curve analysis was performed.
Main Results:
- Total scores for verbal, nonverbal, and diadochokinetic tasks exhibited good sensitivity and specificity.
- Certain verbal sub-tasks (consistency, prosody) and a diadochokinetic item (/ta/) showed poor discriminatory ability.
- Area under the ROC curve (AUC) values were generally >0.7 for typical speech vs. MSD and PD vs. MSD comparisons.
- AUC values were poor to fair when comparing typical speech with PD, indicating potential limitations in differentiating these groups.
Conclusions:
- The verbal, nonverbal, and diadochokinetic tasks of the PraxiFala Battery possess good sensitivity and specificity.
- The instrument may be less effective in distinguishing between typical speech and phonological disorder.
- Further research may be needed to refine the PraxiFala Battery for specific diagnostic purposes.
Purpose:
To present the sensitivity and specificity and establish cutoff points (receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve) for the PraxiFala Battery.
Method:
The sample included 308 Brazilian-speaking children aged 3;0-7;11. Twenty-one children had motor speech disorders (MSD), 58 children had phonological disorder (PD), and 229 had typical speech (TS) development. Participants were administered the PraxiFala Battery, which contains verbal (word and sentence production), nonverbal (orofacial praxis), and diadochokinetic tasks. The sensitivity and specificity of items in each task were then calculated using ROC curves.
Result:
Total scores on the verbal (word production), nonverbal (orofacial praxis), and diadochokinetic tasks had good sensitivity and specificity. The only scores with poor sensitivity and specificity in differentiating between TS, PD, and MSD were consistency and prosody in the verbal tasks (sentence production), and item /ta/ in the diadochokinetic task. Area under the ROC curve (AUC) values were greater than 0.7 for most items in the comparison between TS vs. MSD and PD vs. MSD. AUC values were poor or fair among children with TS and PD, suggesting that this instrument may not be accurate in identifying these groups.
Conclusion:
The verbal, nonverbal, and diadochokinetic tasks in the PraxiFala Battery had good sensitivity and specificity.
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