Speech production accuracy and variability in children with Down's syndrome

Abstract

The study investigated the speech accuracy and variability of 15 children with Down’s syndrome, 15 children with intellectual impairment and 15 children with normal development. All participants were asked to produce 31 words from Cantonese Segmental Phonology Test (CSPT) in three spontaneous trials and three imitated trials. Results showed that significantly lower accuracy and higher variability were found in repeated productions of consonants, vowels, tones and whole-words in speech of children with Down’s syndrome. Higher speech accuracy and lower speech variability upon imitation were also noted in Down’s syndrome population. Using these findings, this study explored the possible etiology of speech disorder in Down’s syndrome population and suggested appropriate intervention approaches targeting the underlying deficits in the speech processing chain.