In the psycholinguistic analysis of childhood speech disorders, the speech therapist asks the child to name a total of 99 items, each of which he transcribes phonologically and records on tape. The tester analyzes the recorded data psycholinguistically with the help of his tables and in this way determines the child’s speech status, classifying any disorders into one of the four subgroups of Barbara Dodd’s speech disorder classification. In this way, he can differentially determine an appropriate speech therapy for the child and document the success of this therapy through repeated use of the testing procedure.
What is psycholinguistic analysis of childhood speech disorders?
In the psycholinguistic analysis of childhood speech disorders, the speech therapist asks the child to name a total of 99 items, each of which is phonologically transcribed and recorded on tape. The Psycholinguistic Analysis of Childhood Speech Disorders, or PLAKSS for short, is a linguistically developed test procedure designed to determine the speech status of children on the basis of German. In the course of the test, the child names various items that correspond to the linguistic characteristics of German. During the naming process, the child is recorded. The evaluation of the tapes is used to diagnose or monitor the course of therapy for speech disorders. In 2002, Annette von Fox-Boyer developed the procedure based on a classification model by Barbara Dodd, which is used to assess physiological speech development. The theoretical background of the test includes a study of one-year-old and monolingual German-speaking children whose language development status was documented at six-month intervals over a period of six years. In combination, the procedure draws on a second study of speech disorder classification based on Barbara Dodd. Dodd’s classification revolutionized the previous treatment of speech disorders in the 1990s, since such disorders had previously been explained purely in articulatory terms. Only recently have phonological theories, such as “generative phonology,” been included in the consideration of childhood pronunciation disorders. Even the linguistic fields of cognition or psycholinguistics deal with speech disorders today. Dodd’s model was one of the first, psycholinguistic models and assumes a causal level of interference in speech processing, which can be assessed with the help of the PLAKSS.
Function, effect, and goals
The PLAKSS is primarily used in speech therapy care, mostly for the initial diagnosis of speech disorders. However, in the context of speech therapy, the test’s sheets also allow documentation of therapy progress. The test consists of two parts: a picture recognition test with 99 items and the logging, presentation and evaluation of this test by the speech therapist. It is up to the tester to decide which of the twelve available sheets to use for the evaluation. Before beginning the test, the speech therapist asks the testee to label each of the 99 items on the main test material individually. If the child is unable to recognize one of the pictures, the speech therapist may help with picture recognition using a cloze. The tester transcribes the individual namings by the child phonetically and also tape-records the test for linguistic analysis such as phonological process analysis. The naming of the 99 items is followed by a second test run, the so-called 25-word test. The items contained therein are all taken from the picture naming test and allow the tester to check the consistency or inconsistency of the phonological data obtained so far. The same 25 items are named twice more during the test, and the tester enters the results in one of the tables. In addition to checking for consistency, the 25-word test also allows for screening, if needed. After the test is completed, the speech-language pathologist uses his or her records to create a psycholinguistic analysis and classifies any speech disorder discovered in the process into one of the four subgroups Dodd names in her classification model of speech disorder.Thus, a diagnosis of articulation disorder, delayed phonological development, consistent phonological disorder, or inconsistent phonological disorder can be made, allowing selection of an appropriate form of therapy.
Risks, side effects, and hazards
Currently, the PLAKSS II is usually used instead of the PLAKSS for diagnosis and therapy documentation of an early childhood speech disorder. This test was developed from the PLAKSS and takes even better account of the typical syllable structure and word stress structure of German. Unlike the PLAKSS, the PLAKSS II is the first version of the test to be made available to the Austrian and Swiss regions. The test is popular above all because it is child-friendly and can be carried out relatively quickly. Overall, the procedure usually takes less than 30 minutes. However, if the child is unwilling to cooperate, this period can be extended. In extreme cases, neither PLAKSS nor PLAKSS II can be performed because the child does not want to give any answers. If the procedure is carried out in the course of an initial assessment, it is usually followed by special speech therapy if there are findings. Since the test enables a more differentiated assessment of the disorder than all previous procedures, the speech therapist can select the most promising therapy method all the better after the test. The diagnosis of an articulation disorder, for example, would classically be followed by a form of phonological therapy. In the case of a phonological disorder, the speech therapist could advise articulation therapy. A consistent phonological disorder, on the other hand, could be treated with rhyme recognition and rhyme production, and an inconsistent phonological disorder could be treated via core vocabulary therapy.
