Speech tests

Speech tests can be used to see if a child is accessing the sounds of speech.

The McCormick Toy Test

The McCormick Toy Test was developed in 1977 by Professor Barry McCormick and consists of 7 pairs of words with the same vowel sound and different consonants.  It is important to know if the child understands the vocabulary, so any unknown words are not used.

A child is asked using a quiet voice to choose the correct toy and passes the test with four out of five correct responses.  The test is child friendly and easy to administer (McCormick, 2004). 

The automated McCormick Toy Test is used in children’s audiology departments providing useful information about access to the sounds of speech.

Ling Sounds

The Ling Six Sound Test (Ling 1976) consists of six speech sounds.  3 vowels (oo,ee,ah) and 3 consonants (m,s,sh).  These sounds cover the normal speech frequency range (250-8000 Hz) and can be used to show if low, mid and high frequency speech sounds can be heard.  It is possible to teach a young child to associate the sounds which a particular picture or toy, eg ‘s’ for snake, ‘sh’ for sleeping.  A child can show that they can identify the sound by repeating it back or indicate that they know what the sound is by pointing to a picture or toy.  Peter Keen (Consultant Educational Audiologist) has created a scoring and reporting format for the Ling 6 Sound Test.

Further information about the McCormick Toy Test and the Ling Six South Test can be read here.

Other listening assessments

There are many other listening assessments available to assess a child’s access to spoken language. For children over the age of 5, the BKB (Bamford Kowai Bench) test consists of lists of sentences, which a child is asked to repeat and their responses scored. More information on speech discrimination tests using BKB sentences is available in a series of articles from the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf Magazines.

The Manchester Picture Test was updated in 2002 and consists of a target word to be selected from a choice of four pictures.

The NDCS has produced a booklet, which provides more information about these tests and many other listening skills assessments.

References

Harries,J., & Williamson, T. (2000) ‘Community-based validation of the McCormick Toy Test’. British Journal of Audiology. Volume 34:5, pp. 279-283

Ling, D. (1976) Speech and the hearing-impaired child: Theory and practice. Washington, DC: Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf.

McCormick, B. (1977) ‘The toy discrimination test: An aid for screening the hearing of children above a mental age of two years’. Public Health. Volume 91, Issue 2, March pp.67-74

McCormick, B (2004) Paediatric Audiology 0-5 years. 3rd ed. London, Whurr