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Test of Children's Speech (TOCS)
Test of Children's Speech (TOCS)
| Availability |
Please visit this website for more information about the instrument: Test of Children's Speech.
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| Classification |
Exploratory: Cerebral Palsy (CP)
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| Short Description of Instrument |
The Test of Children's Speech™ (TOCS™) is a software tool that records, saves, plays back, judges and analyzes speech recordings to measure children's speech intelligibility at both the word and sentence level. The software is based on the analog version of the TOCS™ that was developed by Megan Hodge. |
| Comments/Special Instructions |
The TOCS™ uses word identification tasks to provide measures of how well a child can make his/her spoken messages understood by listeners. The TOCS™ is useful in both research and clinical practice to classify the severity of the speech disability as well as measure the effectiveness of treatment.
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| Scoring |
Intelligibility scores are determined by the percent of words that are indentified correctly by the listeners.
Score: 0 to 100% intelligible
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| Rationale/Justification |
Children with CP often have speech disorders. Speech intelligibility, how much of a child's spoken message is understood by listeners, is often reported although many informal methods of determining speech intelligibility show poor reliability. The TOCS™ provides a reliable and systematic method to measure young children's speech intelligibility with a word identification task.
Results from a study by Hodge and Gotzke (2014) support the construct-related validity of the TOCS™ as a tool for obtaining intelligibility scores in 3–6 year-old children, with and without speech sound disorders, and in 3+ year-old children with speech disorders, with and without dysarthria.
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| References |
Hodge M, Daniels J, Gotzke C L. (2009). TOCS+ intelligibility measures (Version 5.3) [computer software]. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta.
Hodge M & Daniels J. (2007). TOCS+ intelligibility measures. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta.
Hodge M & Gotzke CL. Criterion-related validity of the Test of Children's Speech sentence intelligibility measure for children with cerebral palsy and dysarthria. Intl J Speech-Lang Pathol. 2014;16(4):417-426.
Hodge M & Gotzke CL. Preliminary results of an intelligibility measure for English-speaking children with cleft palate. Cleft Palate Craniofac J. 2007;44(2):163-174.
Hodge MM & Gotzke CL. Construct-related validity of the TOCS measures: comparison of intelligibility and speaking rate scores in children with and without speech disorders. J Commun Disord. 2014;51:51-63.
Lee J, Hustad KC, Weismer G. Predicting speech intelligibility with a multiple speech subsystems approach in children with cerebral palsy. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2014;57(5):1666-1678.
Document last updated March 2018
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