PT Journal
AU Buntova, D
TI The Influence of Gender and Residence on Articulation Development in Slovak Children: A Pilot Study
SO e-Pedagogium
PY 2025
BP 23
EP 36
VL 24
IS 3
DI 10.5507/epd.2024.013
DE articulation test; normative sample; phonetic-phonological development.
AB Speech sound disorders can develop into dyslexia and negatively impact a child's quality of life. Reliable norm-referenced tests are essential for early diagnosis and timely intervention, contingent on the composition of the normative sample. In a pilot study, we evaluated 100 intact Slovak monolingual children aged 5 to 6 using the new ARTES articulation test. The objective of this study was to examine the potential influence of place of residence and gender on the development of pronunciation skills in typically developing Slovak children. Our findings indicate that speech intelligibility, the percentage of correct consonants, vowels, and the percentage of correct phonemes are not statistically significantly influenced by the child's gender or place of residence (urban vs. rural). However, children from Eastern Slovakia exhibited statistically lower performance in the percentage of correct vowels, consonants, and phonemes compared to their counter parts from Central and Western Slovakia. Conversely, children from Eastern Slovakia demonstrated statistically better performance in the percentage of correct phonemes than those from Central and Western Slovakia. These performances were qualitatively evaluated. The conclusions derived from this study serve as a foundation for developing the normative sample of the ARTES test.
ER