Validation of items for a speech intelligibility assessment scale.

Background: speech intelligibility evaluation.

Aim: to develop and validate items for a speech intelligibility assessment scale based on the speech of individuals with phonological disorder (PD) who present common phonological repair strategies (RS) in the Brazilian Portuguese language (BP), through the testing of its effectiveness in classifying the speech of these subjects. Also to observe the speech intelligibility generated by the use of RS and possible interference of factors such as gender, age, literacy and contact of the judges with children.

Method: spontaneous narratives of five children with typical PD and one control subject were recorded in a compact disc (CD) and presented to 103 judges, with normal hearing abilities, with ages ranging from 18 to 39 years and with elementary, high-school and undergraduate backgrounds.

Results: results indicate the statistical validity of the scale and that the type of RS if fundamental for speech intelligibility. There was no statistical interference of the investigated variables of gender, age, literacy and contact with children in the performed judgments.

Conclusion: the scale items were validated and demonstrated efficacy in the assessment of speech intelligibility of the studied cases.