Persian Articulation Assessment for Children Aged 3 - 6 Years: A Validation Study

Objectives: The present study aimed to adapt articulation assessment, a subtest of the diagnostic evaluation of articulation and phonology, and to determine its reliability and validity for Persian speaking children. Methods: The Persian version of articulation assessment (PAA) was administered to 387 children aged between 36 - 72 months, M (SD):53.7 (± 10.1) by month, after the adaptation process. A methodological study including test–retest reproducibility, score-rescore consistency and evaluating validity (through content, convergent and discriminative validity) was then carried out in order to determine the psychometric properties of the instrument. Results: Content validity ratio for Persian item’s content coverage, agreement image and syllable structure were 0.86 - 1, 0.92 and 0.94, respectively. Minimum content validity index of 0.93 exceeded in terms of relevancy, simplicity and clarity of instructions. The percentage agreement for the test-retest was 91.35-100% and the score-rescore analysis was 92.95-100%. The convergent validity was reasonable. The Persian Articulation Assessment’s mean scores for individuals with articulation disorders being significantly lower than those by normal children, showed discriminative validity (t = 7.245, df = 34, P < 0.001). Conclusions: The Persian version of Articulation Assessment is suggestive of a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating the articulation skills in Persian speaking children.