CAV-ES (Clinical Assessment of Vowels – English Systems)

CAV-ES (Clinical Assessment of Vowels – English Systems) is designed to help SLT/SLPs derive a clinically useful profile of a child’s contrastive vowel system.  It facilitates identification of systematic vowel error patterns such as vowel lowering (e.g., ‘bed’ pronounced as ‘bad) and vowel raising (e.g., ‘bed’ pronounced as ‘bead’).  The first thirteen pictures can be used as a screen while the full assessment provides a detailed measure of the child’s productive vowel knowledge.

Please see the User Guide for details regarding the picture stimuli, transcription and analysis sheets.  This also includes worked examples of different case profiles to assist with data analysis and interpretation.  Currently we have transcription and analysis sheets for three accent systems: Southern British Standard (SBS), Scottish English and Ulster English (see links below).  All materials are free to download.  (The conditions of use are described under the Creative Commons License at the bottom of this page.)

Note: CAV-ES was originally developed as a research tool to investigate disordered vowel systems in a group of children from Scotland. The authors would like to thank Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh who supported this research with two ‘small project ‘ grant awards.

For the PPSA (Phonetic and Phonological Systems Analysis) resources, please click here