Computer based Spanish phonetic transcription training for bilingual speech language pathology students

Abstract

There is a lack of bilingual speech-language pathologists and resources that train them to accurately transcribe phonetically in Spanish. Transcription accuracy is important for appropriate identification of speech-sound disorders. Bilingual, Spanish-English, speech-language pathology graduate students (n=7) were assigned to complete three online training modules to learn Spanish phonetic transcription: Syllable and Stress Patterns, IPA Symbology and Counting Sounds, and Transcription of Words and Allophonic Variations. A single-case design was used to determine if there is a functional relation between the use of a Spanish phonetic transcription training and a clinicians' accuracy in transcribing words in Spanish. Participants completed baseline data before the introduction of the training to assess prior knowledge of skills, after every module to measure skill procurement, and then after the completion of the three modules to evaluate for maintenance of acquired skills. The study found a functional relationship between the training program and participants' transcription skills, with varying effect sizes. For syllable boundaries, participants demonstrated moderate to very large size effects. For stress pattern sequences, three participants showed large to very large size effects, while the remaining four showed small or no size effect. Counting sounds showed a very large size effect for one participant, a moderate effect for another, and small or no size effect for the remaining participants. Lastly, for transcription of words and allophonic variation, three participants demonstrated very large size effects, three showed large size effects, and one exhibited a moderate effect. This study suggest that the Spanish phonetic transcription training can be used to improved transcription accuracy for the bilingual SLPs and to develop the competencies needed when assessing and treating Spanish speech-sound disorders in speaking monolingual or bilingual children.