[PS-1.19] Speech perception tasks as an instrument for early diagnosis of developmental language disorders: a test-retest reliability study of the HPP procedure

Marimon, M. & Höhle, B.

University of Potsdam

The Head-Turn-Preference procedure (HPP) is commonly used in infant speech perception research. Previous studies have already shown that speech perception measures obtained with HPP are related to later language skills which may make them a potential instrument for diagnosing developmental language risks. However, data regarding the reliability of this procedure are scarce. The main goal of the present study was to assess the reliability and stability of this measure in young infants across several test-retest sessions.
We tested 38 6-month German monolingual infants for a trochaic bias in the HPP procedure without familiarization (as in Höhle et al.; 2009) in three sessions separated by 1 week.
Regarding the re-test reliability, we found a correlation in the looking times (both trochaic and iambic) between the second and the third tests (p < .01), and also between the first and the third (for the trochaic, p < .05). Preliminary results also show a positive correlation between the trochaic looking times in the last test session and vocabulary size at 12 months (p < .05), as well as a negative correlation with the iambic looking times (p < .05).Limits and perspectives of using speech perception measures for early diagnosis will be considered.