What is it about?

1. What is the ICS-EF?
 The ICS-EF is the European French version of the ICS. The ICS is a free and open-access parent questionnaire assessing children's functional intelligibility between ages 3 and 6. It is recognized internationally as a screening tool for Speech Sound Disorders (SSD). 2. Why this validation? 
French has few available SSD screening tools. The ICS has already been validated in many languages, but not yet in French. This validation addresses that gap. 3. Key findings
 The ICS-EF shows good psychometric properties (validity, reliability) and proves to be a sensitive tool for screening SSD between ages 3 and 6. Cut-off scores were calculated for three age groups (3-4 years, 4 to 4.5 years, and over 4.5 years). Qualitatively, the ICS also helps identify the functional impacts of SSD in children. 4. Implications 
The ICS-EF is now ready for clinical use. It is a new SSD screening tool in French, free and open access, that also helps assess functional impact. We encourage speech-language pathologists to make use of this new tool.

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Perspectives

This validation further supports evidence that the ICS effectively measures functional speech intelligibility across diverse linguistic and cultural settings. The differences in sensitivity/specificity observed between our whole-sample cutoff and our three age-specific cutoffs highlight that a single cutoff across a broad age range is inadequate. Therefore, we strongly encourage future ICS research to (1) continue adapting the tool to diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, and (2) adopt age-based cutoffs as standard practice. We strongly encourage French-speaking SLPs to add the ICS-EF into their assessment routines whether for SSD screening and/or for evaluating the functional impact of speech disorders. We also encourage all other health-related professionals (e.g., family doctors, pediatricians, ENT) to use the ICS-EF as a screening tool for speech and language disorders, thereby facilitating appropriate referrals to SLPs.

Léonor Piron
Universite de Liege

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: The Validity, Reliability, and Accuracy of the European French Version of the Intelligibility in Context Scale, Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, August 2026, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2026_jslhr-25-00609.
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