The difference in PMLU scores for Dutch children (2;0-6;0) with a phonological impairment following the FAN-procedure or the chronological procedure

Abstract

Title: The difference in PMLU scores for Dutch children (2;0-6;0) with a phonological impairment following the FAN-procedure or the chronological procedure Background: Phonological mean length of utterance (PMLU) scores could be used to get a first indication for phonological disorders. A PMLU score is usually obtained over a spontaneous speech sample after a FAN analysis. In order to make the PMLU suitable for clinical use, it should be calculated on a language sample as small as possible and be less time consuming. Research questions: 1. What is the difference in PMLU scores for Dutch children (2;0-6;0) with a phonological impairment between a spontaneous language sample obtained by the FAN procedure and a chronological procedure over the first 25 words? 2. What is the difference in PMLU scores between a spontaneous language sample of 25 words and a spontaneous language sample of 50 words obtained by the chronological procedure? Method: The study includes 14 Dutch children with a suspicion of a phonological impairment. Children’s spontaneous language was recorded. PMLU scores were calculated for the language sample sizes 25 following the FAN procedure and the chronological procedure and language sample size 50 following the chronological procedure. Reliability testing was used to examine whether a clinically relevant and applicable PMLU can be determined. Results: The selection procedure of the words give no significant difference in PMLU between the groups and a high correlation on the PMLU scores. Conclusion: Selecting the first 25 words of a spontaneous language sample seems to give applicable PMLU scores for young children aged 2;8-5;0 years. Recommendations: Future research should focus on repeating this research with a larger sample size and repeated measures within a sample. Furthermore, younger children with a phonological impairment should be included in a future study to make a validity study possible in the future.