Psycholinguistic speech processing assessment for adults: Development and case series

In educational institutions there are a significant number of young adults with speech, language and literacy problems. Nevertheless, due to a lack of assessment tools, difficulties are often not recognised which in turn limits access to possible supports. The specific objective of this study was to develop a comprehensive speech processing skills assessment battery for native English-speaking adults, taking psycholinguistics into account. The assessment tool consists of subtests that assess auditory discrimination of non-words and non-word repetition, reading and spelling of non-words, and spoonerisms with non- and real words.
Normative data from 101 English-speaking adults (age 18-35 years) were collected and analysed in terms of general psychometric properties. Further in depth analyses look at the nature of mistakes and reaction time of participants. Moreover, a case series of participants who stammer (N=6) was conducted to test the speech processing assessment in regards to profiling existing speech difficulties and comparing these profiles to norm data.
Results support the establishment of objectivity, validity and reliability of the assessment tool, but also highlight important factors which need to be investigated in more detail. Results concerning the case studies showed individual differences of performances compared to the norm data which can be explained by theoretical knowledge about stammering.
Outcomes encourage the usage of the assessment tool for research (e.g. comparison of speech processing profiles in adults with speech disorders) as well as the possibility of further development for clinical and educational settings (e.g. the development of specific disability support). A next step of this programme of work could be to modify the assessment tool based on analysed outcomes. Moreover, deeper investigation of people experiencing speech difficulties could follow to support the profiling of adults with persistent developmental speech difficulties in, for example, higher education.