Percentage of Correct Consonants, Speech Intelligibility, and Speech Acceptability in Children with Cleft Palate

Han, Jin Soon

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2009;14(2): 183-199.

Jin Soon Han^`

한진순(Jin Soon Han)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
It is important to account for the index of communication effectiveness as well as the percentage of correct consonants (PCC) in clinical decision-making when treating patients with articulation-phonological disorders. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether there is a correlation among the PCC, speech intelligibility, and speech acceptability of children with cleft palate (CP).
Methods
Nine children with cleft palate, nine children with functional articulation disorder, and nine children without developmental abnormalities, all three to six years of age and age-matched, participated in this study. All subjects were asked to repeat seven eight-syllable sentences. Each utterance was judged in regard to correct articulation of the target sounds, and a PCC score was calculated for each sentence. After listening to each sentence, 40 naive listeners were asked to rate both the speech intelligibility and speech acceptability of each sentence on a 10㎝ Visual Analog Scale.
Results
The PCC scores, speech intelligibilities, and speech acceptabilities of the sentences produced by children with cleft palate were significantly related. A significant relationship among the PCC score, speech intelligibility, and speech acceptability ratings for lingual consonants and consonants that are generally acquired later during development was detected. The correlations between the PCC scores and the speech intelligibility ratings, and the PCC scores and the speech acceptability ratings were not significant when analyzed by level of PCC, speech intelligibility, and speech acceptability.
Discussion & Conclusion
Although speech intelligibility and speech acceptability are influenced by PCC score, they are not interchangeable measures. Variables that may underlie the relationships between PCC, speech intelligibility, and speech acceptability was discussed.