Applying Item Response Theory to Develop a Shortened Version of the Tone Sequencing Task
2Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, China
3Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
4Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Vermont, US
Degraded pitch-variation skills occur in Cantonese-speaking children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) -- impaired speech motor planning and programming (Wong et al., 2024a). The Tone Sequencing Task (TST), a tool with 108 items, assesses tone accuracy and consistency. Item response theory (IRT) was used to shorten the TST. 100 Cantonese-speaking children were assessed: typical development (TD; n = 63), speech sound disorder only (SSD; n = 23), speech and language disorder (S&LD; n = 7), and CAS (n = 7). TST performance was analysed for perceptual accuracy and consistency. IRT analyses provided infit and outfit mean-square values and difficulty measures based on each item’s accuracy and consistency scores. Item selection considered these values, number of items, item length, syllable structure, lexical status, and tone sequences. The shortened TST includes 15 items: (1) four 1-syllable and eleven 3-syllable; (2) seven V-syllable, seven CV-syllable, and one with V, CV, and CVV syllables; (3) three word and twelve non-word items. It also includes specific tone sequences and tone 2 items shown to have discriminative value for accuracy and consistency (Wong et al., 2024b, 2024c). Group comparisons indicated both the long and shortened TST showed consistent differentiability. The CAS group scored statistically significantly lower in accuracy and consistency than the SSD and TD groups (ps < .05), similar to the S&LD group. The shortened TST retains the original’s differentiability and is more clinically practical. Future research should develop normative data for clinical applications.
Wong, E. C. H., Wong, M. N., & Velleman, S. L. (2024a). Acoustic analyses of tone productions in sequencing contexts among Cantonese-speaking preschool children with and without childhood apraxia of speech. JSLHR. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00383
Wong, E. C. H., Wong, M. N., & Velleman, S. L. (2024b). Diagnostic accuracy of three speech production tasks for childhood apraxia of speech in Cantonese-speaking preschool children. Early Childhood Voices Conference Proceedings, 127. https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/
Wong, E. C. H., Wong, M. N., Velleman, S. L., & Wong, L. L. S. (2024c). Tone consistency across consecutive productions in Cantonese-speaking preschool children with childhood apraxia of speech on a tone sequencing task [submitted].