Norms for the Mottier-Test from 4- to 6-year old children

The Mottier Test - a diagnostic test of non-word repetition (30 nonsense syllables of varying length) - is designed to measure phonological processing. To assess individual results in 4- to 6-year-olds, only reference values based on raw scores published in 1981 are available. Data was collected in 2006 in two German federal states for the purposes of updating reference values. A sample of 308 nursery-school children (154 boys; 154 girls) from Lower Saxony and Northrhine-Westphalia were examined (4-year-olds: n=86; 5-year-olds: n=126; 6-year-olds: n=96). Boy and girls performed more or less the same (mean correctly repeated non-words: boys 13.44; girls 14.08; p=0.15). However, older children performed better than younger ones (4-year-olds: 11.19, SD 3.93; 5-year-olds: 13.95, SD 4.02; 6-year-olds: 15.81, SD 3.97). The difference between the three age groups was highly significant: 4- and 5-year-olds (U=3358.5; p=.000); 5- and 6-year-olds (U=4551.5; p=.002); 4- and 6-year-olds (U=1658; p=.000). The same was true for the difference in the half-yearly performance of the 5-year-olds (60-65 months old: 12.78, SD 3.67; 66-71 months old: 14.96, SD 4.07; U=1317; p=.001). Percentile ranks (and T-scores) specific to age were provided. Normative data to evaluate intra- and interindividual performances among German-speaking children aged 4-6 years old contributes to the improvement of diagnostic assurance.