A PRELIMINARY STUDY: WORD AND NON-WORD REPETITION TASKS IN CHILDREN WITH SPEECH DELAY

Abstract

This study examined the potential of using word and non-word repetition to screen children with speech delay in Indonesia. The tasks adapted Dollaghan & Campbell (1998), which was adjusted to Indonesian. There were 32 items arranged in two sets, consisting of 16 words and 16 non-words, and four items in one, two, three, and four syllables. The sets were counterbalanced across participants. The total number of phonemes in each set was 96. This research involved two children with speech delay (aged 5;0 (year;month) coded B12, and aged 7;1 coded A12); and eleven typically developing children as a control group for each of A12 and B12. The accuracy of word repetitions of all number of syllables by B12 revealed significantly lower results than the accuracy of the control group. The accuracy of non-word repetition in this group did not show any significant differences. For the group of participants aged 7 years, the word repetition revealed significant differences, although A12 had performed normally in two-syllable words. In this group, the repetition of 3- and 4-syllables non-words by participant A12 showed significantly lower results compared to the accuracy of the control group. Clinical and developmental implications in the Indonesian context were discussed.KEYWORDS: Speech Delay, Non-word Repetition, Word Repetition, Language Disorders in Children