Azerbaijan artiiculation test: Valiidiity and reliability

Speech sound disorders (SSD) is a problem in perceiving and conceptualizing the sounds in the language and/or performing motor movements required for the articulation of these sounds. This disorder is the most common communication problem among preschool children. According to the ASHA (ASHA, 2000 from Fogle, 2008, p. 195) 10%-15% of the preschool children have SSD. There are different opinions about evaluation methods for SSD. But most authors propose to use standardized articulation or image naming tests for this purpose. Because speech sounds and target words are language specific, such tests must be developed separately for each language. Taking into consideration that there is no such kind of assessment tool in Azerbaijani, the present study aimed to develop a valid and reliable articulation test in this language. Azerbaijan Articulation Test (AzAT) consists of 92 items. This test was administered to 354 children. In order to provide initial evidence of the psychometric properties of AzAT, the reability and validity of the assessment were substantiated. For the validity of AzAT, content and construct validity were tested. Content validity consisted of two parts: expert opinions and "field sampling" which is used to deduce whether picture-word lists were recognized by children. For confirming the construct validity, the mean of the raw scores for each age groups, the correlation between total scores obtained from each sound and the ages were calculated and factor analysis were performed. To test the reliability of AzAT, test-retest method and correlation analysis between scores were applied. As a result of these analyses, AzAT was found to be a valid and reliable test.