What’s more natural than speaking? Yet some children have difficulties that disrupt their learning of spoken language. And speech therapists have few sufficiently comprehensive standardised tools to assess these disorders, particularly in French. The Eulalies project was launched in 2015 to meet this need.
Based on discussions between GIPSA-lab and LPNC laboratory researchers and speech therapists from Grenoble Alpes University Hospital’s Centre de Référence des Troubles du Langage et des Apprentissages (CRTLA, Language and Learning Disorder Reference Centre), this project began with two observations: the lack of a comprehensive assessment tool specific to French, and the lack of reference data on typical development of speech in French. “However to diagnose a disorder, you need to be able to compare it to a standard,” explains Anne Vilain, associate professor in Language Sciences at UGA and researcher at GIPSA-Lab. Speech therapists needed tools to better understand what happens when a child deviates from expected development.”
Though tests already existed, they didn’t cover all the sounds of the French language. With Geneviève Meloni, speech therapist and doctoral student jointly supervised by the University of Montreal, and Hélène Loevenbruck, research director at the CNRS and LPNC laboratory, Anne Vilain developed a more comprehensive battery to assess speech production and perception. They then launched a vast data collection campaign, which is still ongoing, and has to date studied 368 children, including 257 with typical development. A highlight of this study is the linguistic diversity of participants, enabling researchers to distinguish between difficulties due to multilingualism and genuine language disorders.
Since 2020, the battery has featured five tests targeting different stages of the speech perception and production process. Lasting a total of 45 minutes, these tests are still being standardised. “We need more data, particularly to fine tune the age categories,” explains Anne Vilain. But they have already been used on several research projects with different applications. A first project by Geneviève Meloni targeted speech development disorders, including verbal dyspraxia, a motor disorder that is still poorly characterised in French. Subsequently, the battery of tests was used by Laura Machart and Lucie Van Bogaert in research into spoken communication by deaf children equipped with cochlear implants, as part of the European Comm4CHILD project (https://comm4child.ulb.be) and as part of the ANR HearCog project, and finally by Claire Boilley, funded by ANR Eulalies, for her work on reading access difficulties in children and teenagers with mild intellectual disabilities.
Though based in Grenoble, the project quickly drew interest from other teams. The University of Montreal and the Language Dynamics laboratory in Lyon joined the initiative. In Belgium, at the University of Liège, the battery was adapted to the specifics of local French to explore other language disorders. The project also involves collaboration with a Canadian researcher, who is working on an application designed for speech therapists to automate analysis and facilitate diagnosis.
Already used in research, Eulalies could therefore soon enter clinical use. It is already listed on the Tool2Care platform, which provides clinicians with critical information about assessment batteries. Its development is continuing, with the aim of providing increasing powerful tools to improve the assessment and treatment of speech disorders in French-speaking children. To be continued...
* CNRS / UGA / Grenoble INP - UGA
** CNRS / UGA / Université Savoie Mont Blanc
Crédit photo de couverture : Julie Marchart - Eulalies
