Development of Oral Expression Scale in Hindi for Children of Age Range 3–7 Years

Abstract

Introduction: Oral expression pertains to the use of words and includes the ability to formulate and produce words and sentences with appropriate vocabulary, grammar, and application of conversational rules. Children's oral expression skills are essential for their learning and academic success. Materials and Methods: This study is aimed to develop a test for measuring the oral expression skills among native Hindi speaking children between the ages of 3–7 years and to establish normative for the same. The Oral expression comprised three subtests, namely Vocabulary, Pragmatic, and Syntax, each subtest containing 20 stimulus items, respectively. Results: For establishing the normative, 120 native Hindi speaking participants were selected and divided into four age groups of 1-year age interval. Each group comprised 30 participants including males and females. The results indicated that there is a significant difference in the mean scores obtained across the age groups, along with a trend of increase in score with an increase in age. Moreover, a strong positive correlation between the test and retest trials, indicated that the Oral Expression Scale can yield similar results across contexts, independent of clinic and test administrator, thus establishing it as a reliable tool for the assessment of oral expression. Conclusion: To conclude, the Oral Expression Scale is an efficient and reliable tool that can be used with native Hindi speakers. It may also be included as a part of test battery for evaluating oral expression skills among individuals with expression deficits like specific language impairment, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and Autism.