The Larson Consonant Sound Discrimination Test : Reliability and Validity Data for Third Through Sixth Grade Students

The purpose of this study was to obtain reliability and validity data for the Larson Consonant Sound Discrimination Test (LCSDT). Subjects were 55 third through sixth grade students who received an otoscopic exam, tympanometry screening, and had passed a sweep frequency hearing screening given within the current school year In addition, the subjects completed two auditory discrimination tests, the LCSDT and the Wepman Test of Auditory Discrimination (WTAD) Analyses of the data suggest that auditory discrimination abilities continue to develop as a child matures; however, these data must be interpreted with caution as a limited number of fifth/sixth grade subjects participated in the study. A weak significant correlation was found between the subjects\u27 mean scores on the LCSDT and the subjects \u27 mean scores on the WTAD, suggesting that the two discrimination tests may be testing different abilities. Furthermore, it was found that although the subjects missed approximately the same number of phoneme pairs on each administration of the LCSDT, the phoneme pairs that were discriminated incorrectly varied considerably among test administrations. This finding suggests that the word pairs used throughout the LCSDT are appropriate, although a few pairs need to be examined further to determine whether to replace them with word pairs that could be discriminated more easily. The LCSDT may be a useful auditory discrimination test that provides an examiner with information regarding specific phoneme pairs a subject has difficulty discriminating. Therefore, more appropriate and effective treatment goals and objectives may be formulated