RESUMO
The aim of this study was twofold: first, to describe a new Swedish intelligibility test (Swedish Test of Intelligibility for Children, STI-CH) and second to evaluate its validity and reliability. STI-CH is based on the repetition of single words. Ten children with a speech-sound disorder (4:6-8:3 years of age, mean = 6.0 years) and 10 children with typical speech and language development (4:8-7:4 years of age, mean = 5.9 years) were included. Twenty speech-language pathology students served as listeners. Intra-judge reliability was high (r > 0.92), as was the intra-class correlation of inter-judge reliability (0.97). In terms of validity, there was a significant difference in STI-CH scores between the two groups, and the scores correlated statistically significantly with the Percentage of Consonants Correct (r = 0.94) and with intelligibility in spontaneous speech (r = 0.85). To sum up, the results indicate that STI-CH could be an option for the assessment of intelligibility in Swedish-speaking children, and that the principles used in the development of the test could be of use in the design of intelligibility tests in languages other than Swedish.
