Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / PROBLEM: The purpose of the research was to examine the relationships of auditory discrimination to articulatory proficiency as observed in kindergarten children; and secondarily, to examine the relationships of these variables to those of intelligence, selected personality factors, and speech muscular coordination. SCOPE: The sample population of 132 kindergarten children was selected from eight elementary schools in one city, with a ninth school for pilot testing. A four-point socioeconomic level instrument devised for the study and the Short Form. of the Templin-Darley Tests of Articulation were used to select the sample. PROCEDURE: From the articulation score and socioeconomic designation determined for every kindergarten child in the elementary schools available for study, 132 children were randomly selected and randomly assigned to either a pretest or experimental group. The pretest group was first administered the Auditory Discrimination Test. Results were then analyzed, and the test was revised and administered to the experimental group. Data on the other variables of intelligence, speech muscular coordination, and selected personality factors were obtained through a single administration to each child of the Pintner-Cunningham Primary Test, the Averell Speech Muscular Coordination Test, the Children's Apperception Test, and the Long Form of the Templin-Darley Tests of Articulation. As a final step, correlations of the variables were computed, studied, and interpreted. MAJOR FINDINGS: Auditory discrimination and articulatory proficiency are not significantly related. Also, the auditory discrimination scores are not related to the change in the articulation performance of the kindergarten children after they entered the first grade of school. Auditory discrimination did not correlate significantly with selected personality factors. The correlations of auditory discrimination and speech muscular coordination are positive and significant at the .01 level of confidence. Auditory discrimination and intelligence correlated significantly. This is an indication that the two variables are closely related for this age group. Articulatory proficiency did not correlate significantly with intelligence, selected personality factors, or speech muscular coordination. CONCLUSIONS: It is concluded that the variables studied are not significantly related, even though clinical impressions of individual children and some past studies suggest positive relationships. In general, the findings indicate that kindergarten children as a group who have numerous misarticulations in their speech, as compared with kindergarten children with few or no misarticulations, will not display (1) more difficulty with auditory discrimination tasks, or (2) more incoordination in the performance of movements considered to be basic for successful production of speech sounds; nor will the kindergarten children as a group (3) display abnormal degrees of feelings, or (4) have lower intelligence quotients. It is felt that the data do not preclude the possibility that these variables are significantly related for individual children, since there seems to be a disparity between clinical impressions and the research instruments used for this study. It is possible that the research instruments are invalid or that the clinical impressions are misleading. The means of assessing these variables must be studied further, both experimentally and clinically. In particular, experimentation with the auditory discrimination measure has suggested modifications that can be made in the test. Since it is known that this type of test has been effective with kindergarten children, future research should be devoted to studying pre-kindergarten children with the same or similar model. For example, individual children should be studied longitudinally over an extended period of time, sampling their performance for auditory discrimination tasks, as well as sampling changes in verbalizations of feelings, and their speech muscular coordination growth. Both experimental and clinical approaches will be desirable. / 2999-01-01