Developing an articulation test for arabic-speaking school-age children

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop an Arabic articulation test using familiar and visually transparent words in order to be used as a criterion for comparing phonemes of both normal and phonologically disordered Arabic-speaking children. Material and Methods: A picture-naming test was designed for the Mansoura Arabic Articulation Test (MAAT) to elicit spontaneous single-word responses representing all possible consonant positions and vowels of Colloquial Egyptian Arabic. Three expert phoniatricians were asked to review MAAT and complete a questionnaire. The MAAT was presented to 100 normal Arabic-speaking Egyptian children randomly selected from the first- and second-grade kindergarten. They were 52 males and 48 females with ages ranging between 42 and 70 months. Children's responses were converted to a percent correct score for sound utterances and picture identification. Results: Statistically non-significant differences were found among experts' opinions reflecting approval for the MAAT items. A statistically highly significant adequate correlation was found between correct word utterances and picture identification which proved the content validity of MAAT. Test-retest reliability proved the consistency of MAAT. Conclusion: MAAT is a valid and reliable test that can be applied to collect the phonetic inventory of Arabic-speaking young children. © 2009 S. Karger AG.