一音節検査方法による構音検査の検討—単語による検査との比較

MONOSYLLABLE ARTICULATION TEST

　Ⅰ．緒言

　構音検査の方法として，幼児には絵カードを用いた検査が一般に行なわれている。われわれも絵カードを用いて，幼児の構音がどのように進んでいくかを追跡した^3）4）。その結果から絵カード検査の標準化を試みようとした。しかし検査の方法として，単語を用いた絵カード検査が適当であるかを検討する必要を感じた。日本語は英語と違つて一音節ずつに分けることができ，単語にするのにはこれらの音節の発音を続けていくことで成立つ。したがつて構音の検査も英語のような単語検査でなく，一音節検査の方がむしろ基本になるのではないかと思われる。日本語の場合，単語は一音節の集りであるが，音節を構成する前後関係などで，音節の発音を誤ることもある。構音検査としては一音節検査がよいと思われるがこれまで一音節検査を検討した報告は見当らない。そこでわれわれは一音節検査を行ないその意味を考察するとともに，一音節検査による構音の正しさ（構音の完成時期）を単語検査のそれと比較した。この比較には，同一被検児によらねばならないので，今回は両検査を同時に行なつた。その結果を報告してご参考に供したい。

　It is a usual way for testing articulation of children to elicit words from them by presenting some picture cards. The articulation mistakes thus obtained do not necessarily imply that the subject can not make the sound. He might have happened to have pronounced erroneously, or the errors might be due to the syllable contexts of the sounds in the particular test words. Since Japanese consists of V and CV syllables, the authors tried articulation testing in monosyllables and compared the results with those of the picture-card test.

　The subjects were 1689 kindergarten and nursery school children aged from 4 to 6. The subjects were asked to repeat 67 monosyllables after the examiner. When they mispronounced, the examiner tried the same sound-syllables more than three times to make sure if they could not make the sound or if they made different sounds by mishearing the examiner. For the picture-card test, 50 words which over 50% of the 5-year-old subjects said spontaneously were selected from our pretest data.

　The results showed that the monosyllable test took only 1 to 2 minutes and was easily carried out for all the subjects. The articulation errors were less in monosyllable test than in picture-card test. The correct articulation of all the Japanese sounds was acquired by over 90% of the subjects by the end of the age 6.

　It was suggested that it might be a mistake to test articulation of a particular sound in particular sound contexts, since a word was acquired as word as a whole and not as a cluster of respective syllables. The word-type test will imply the subjects' articulation status in daily conversation, but to test if the subjects could make the sound or not, the monosyllable test will be the better method.