Gibbon Fiona E, Smyth Heather
Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
Clin Linguist Phon. 2013 Jul;27(6-7):428-34. doi: 10.3109/02699206.2012.741184. Epub 2013 Jan 22.
Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C) has not been used widely to assess prosodic abilities of preschool children. This study was therefore aimed at investigating typically developing 4-year-olds' performance on PEPS-C. PEPS-C was presented to 30 typically developing 4-year-olds recruited in southern Ireland. Children were judged to have completed the test if they produced analysable responses to >95% of the items. The children's scores were compared with data from typically developing 5-6-year-olds. The majority (83%) of 4-year-olds were able to complete the test. The children scored at chance or weak ability levels on all subtests. The 4-year-olds had lower scores than 5-6-year-olds in all subtests, apart from one, with the difference reaching statistical significance in 8 out of 12 subtests. The results indicate that PEPS-C could be a valuable tool for assessing prosody in young children with typical development and some groups of young children with communication disorders.
言语交流韵律剖析要素（PEPS-C）尚未被广泛用于评估学龄前儿童的韵律能力。因此，本研究旨在调查发育正常的4岁儿童在PEPS-C测试中的表现。PEPS-C测试被呈现给在爱尔兰南部招募的30名发育正常的4岁儿童。如果儿童对超过95%的项目给出了可分析的回答，则判定他们完成了测试。将这些儿童的分数与发育正常的5至6岁儿童的数据进行比较。大多数（83%）4岁儿童能够完成测试。在所有子测试中，这些儿童的得分处于随机水平或能力较弱水平。除了一项子测试外，4岁儿童在所有子测试中的得分均低于5至6岁儿童，在12项子测试中的8项中，差异具有统计学意义。结果表明，PEPS-C可能是评估发育正常的幼儿以及一些患有交流障碍的幼儿韵律能力的有价值工具。
