The Design and Validation of an Azeri Phonological Test for Children Aged 4-6 Years

Since there is no reliable and valid tool to assess all features of children’s phonological skills whose first language is Azeri, speech-language pathologists usually use informal or Persian instruments. So, it is essential to develop a tool in Azeri language for assessing articulation and phonological skills. For this reason, this study aimed to develop an Azeri Phonological Test (APT) and then determine the validity and reliability of this test in 4-6 years old children whose first language is Azeri.

Participants were 77 (41 boys and 36 girls; 4-6 years old) typically-developing children. They were selected by cluster sampling method. Firstly, Tabriz City in Iran was geographically divided into three sections, namely south, north, and center. Then, the kindergartens of each area were randomly selected for sampling. The participants were assigned into 2 groups: 48-60 months (n=38) and 61-72 months (n=39) old. To assess the phonological skills, nine stories were designed. An expert panel with 15 speech-language pathologists investigated the content validity of the stories. Then the psychometric characteristics of the APT, including reliability (test-retest reliability, inter-rater, and internal consistency) and validity (construct –known group validity), were assessed. The statistical tests used were intraclass correlation coefficient (intra-rater reliability and test-retest), Kuder-Richardson 21 (internal consistency), and the independent samples t-test (known-groups validity).

The content validity of the whole test was 0.91. Construct validity evaluation showed that age affects the test scores but not gender. There was a significant correlation between the results of test-retest and inter-rater reliability, and also, the test had a high internal consistency. 

Based on the findings, APT is a reliable and valid test for assessing the abilities of 4-6 years old children in terms of the production of sounds in the context of retelling stories.