PhD Scientific Days 2025

Poster Session I. - N: Health Sciences

Validity study of a speech and story intervention for children with atypical development

Name of the presenter

Kovács Johanna

Institute/workplace of the presenter

Semmelweis University - Pető András Faculty - student

Authors

Johanna Kovács¹

1: Semmelweis University - Pető András Faculty - student

Text of the abstract

In Hungary, the GMP 12 subtest is used to measure listening comprehension. In fact, a good level of reading comprehension is a prerequisite for entry into school, as it is essential to have strong reading comprehension skills during the initial stage of reading acquisition. It is also important to begin developing these skills early, even at the kindergarten level.
Pintér & Gál (2023) have developed an assessment tool for children with atypical developmental language delays, particularly for those who do not speak or speak very little, adding to the growing number of assessment tools based on listening comprehension. The research involved two children with cerebral palsy. The children were selected based on the following criteria: intact hearing, the ability to respond adequately, the ability to see pictures clearly, the ability to point to pictures, and being at least 36 months of age. These two children were recorded individually in a separate room during the afternoon sessions. The recordings were videotaped and analyzed by two independent observers at the end of each phase.
The study consisted of four phases. First, a baseline phase with 5 eligible sessions was conducted, followed by an intervention phase consisting of 4 eligible sessions. After that, as in the previous year, the baseline phase was repeated, this time with only the first 4 measurement sessions, each repeated 4 times. Finally, the study concluded with an extended repeated intervention phase consisting of 4 sessions.
The instrument consists of a set of stories and their corresponding pictures, designed according to the developmental level of the children. The purpose of the picture variations is to assess whether the child can select either the actor or the action from the story by pointing to the appropriate picture. The correct answer is defined as pointing to the picture that represents the actor or action in the fairy tale.
The goal was to test a speech intervention tool for assessing speech comprehension in preschool children with cerebral palsy. The results suggested that in this case, the tool was suitable for recognizing semantic relations, particularly noun-verb combinations. However, further research with a larger sample is needed to determine the overall reliability of the tool.