Health Information

The Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test (HKCAT)


HKCAT

The Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test (HKCAT) was published in 2006 by Child Assessment Service (CAS), Department of Health. It is the first standardized Cantonese articulation test with norm reference on the acquisition of initial consonants, final consonants, vowels & diphthongs and tones in Hong Kong.

HKCAT was developed by the professional team of speech therapists in CAS in consultation with speech-language and linguistic academics of the Language Information Sciences Research Centre of the City University of Hong Kong. It was normed on 1,726 children, aged 2 years 4 months to 11 years 7 months, and 112 adults aged 18 to 45 years. It is a reliable instrument to assess children and adults on the production of Cantonese speech sounds. Raw scores can be converted to scaled scores and percentile ranks for different age groups.

HKCAT provides information on the age of acquisition of Cantonese initial consonants, final consonants, vowels, diphthongs and tones. There are also tables on frequent sound errors that occurred at 5%-9.9% and >10% of different age groups. Information on sound change in Hong Kong Cantonese and variant productions by both children and adults are also presented. These references are useful to speech therapists in analyzing the nature and pattern of sound errors of individual clients, as well as to scholars and researchers who are interested in developmental phonology.

The test takes 5 to 10 minutes to perform on children and adults. It is designed for use by qualified speech therapists.

HKCAT is sold to registered users at HK$220 per set.

Applicants should submit the duly completed registration form, together with relevant supporting documents including credentials and certificates, to Executive Officer (Child Assessment Service) at:

Central Kowloon Child Assessment Centre,
2/F, 147L Argyle Street, Kowloon City, Kowloon

Registration Form of HKCAT Eligible User (Local)
Registration Form of HKCAT Eligible User (Non-Local)

For further enquiries, please contact us at 2246 6659.