Receptive speech in children from six to nine years of age

Abstract

The research was conducted with the aim to determine the developmental trend of receptive speech in typically developing children from six to nine years of age. The sample consisted of 111 children with typical development, of both genders (49.5% of girls and 50.5% of boys), aged between 6 and 9.11 years (M=95.09, SD=16.82 in months). Participants were distributed into four age groups. Receptive speech was assessed by the Protocol for the Assessment of Receptive Speech that contains tasks for assessing auditory discrimination, rhyming, word recognition and narrative comprehension. An analysis of variance revealed that age was a significant factor of achievement on rhyming tasks (p≤0.000) and narrative comprehension (p≤0.000). There were no significant age differences in auditory discrimination (p=0.372) and word recognition (p=0.634), although some differences between arithmetic means could be seen in favour of older children. Age can explain around 67% of results variability on rhyming tasks and 56% of variability in narrative comprehension. Significant deviation that would indicate the existence of specific language impairment or intellectual disability was not determined in the participants' results.

Istraživanje je sprovedeno s ciljem da se utvrdi dinamika razvoja sposobnosti razumevanja govora kod dece tipičnog razvoja od šest do devet godina. Uzorak je činilo sto jedanaestoro dece tipičnog razvoja, oba pola (49,5% devojčica i 50,5% dečaka), uzrasta 6-9,11 godina (starost u mesecima: AS=95,09; SD=16,82). Ispitanici su prema uzrastu podeljeni u četiri grupe. Za procenu sposobnosti razumevanja govora primenjen je Protokol za procenu receptivnog govora, koji sadrži zadatke za procenu auditivne diskriminacije, rimovanja, razumevanja reči i razumevanja kontinuiranog govora. Primenom analize varijanse utvrđeno je da je uzrast značajan činilac postignuća na zadacima rimovanja (p≤0,000) i razumevanja kontinuiranog govora (p≤0,000), dok u domenima auditivne diskriminacije (p=0,372) i razumevanja reči (p=0,634) odnos nije značajan, iako se uočavaju izvesne razlike aritmetičkih sredina u korist dece starijeg uzrasta. Uzrastom se može objasniti oko 67% varijabilnosti rezultata na zadacima za procenu rimovanja i 56% varijabilnosti postignuća u domenu razumevanja kontinuiranog govora. Nije utvrđeno značajno odstupanje koje bi ukazalo na postojanje specifičnih jezičkih poremećaja ili intelektualne ometenosti kod ispitanika iz uzorka.