Your Laptop to the Rescue: Using the Child Language Data Exchange System Archive and CLAN Utilities to Improve Child Language Sample Analysis

In this article, we review the advantages of language sample analysis (LSA) and explain how clinicians can make the process of LSA faster, easier, more accurate, and more insightful than LSA done "by hand" by using free, available software programs such as Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN). We demonstrate the utility of CLAN analysis in studying the expressive language of a very large cohort of 24-month-old toddlers tracked in a recent longitudinal study; toddlers in particular are the most likely group to receive LSA by clinicians, but existing reference "norms" for this population are based on fairly small cohorts of children. Finally, we demonstrate how a CLAN utility such as KidEval can now extract potential normative data from the very large number of corpora now available for English and other languages at the Child Language Data Exchange System project site. Most of the LSA measures that we studied appear to show developmental profiles suggesting that they may be of specifically higher value for children at certain ages, because they do not show an even developmental trajectory from 2 to 7 years of age.

[1]  Yang Liu,et al.  Automatic generation of the index of productive syntax for child language transcripts , 2013, Behavior Research Methods.

[2]  L L Lee,et al.  Developmental sentence scoring: a clinical procedure for estimating syntactic development in children's spontaneous speech. , 1971, The Journal of speech and hearing disorders.

[3]  David Malvern,et al.  Developmental trends in lexical diversity , 2004 .

[4]  Steven H. Long,et al.  Accuracy of Four Language Analysis Procedures Performed Automatically , 2001 .

[5]  Paul Fletcher,et al.  Differentiating Cantonese-speaking preschool children with and without SLI using MLU and lexical diversity (D). , 2010, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[6]  S. Hendricks,et al.  Incorporating computer-aided language sample analysis into clinical practice. , 2010, Language, speech, and hearing services in schools.

[7]  David Malvern,et al.  Investigating accommodation in language proficiency interviews using a new measure of lexical diversity , 2002 .

[8]  J L Evans,et al.  Language Sample Analysis in the 21ST Century , 1999, Seminars in speech and language.

[9]  Marleen F. Westerveld,et al.  Clinician survey of language sampling practices in Australia , 2014, International journal of speech-language pathology.

[10]  Laura L. Lee.  Developmental Sentence Analysis: A Grammatical Assessment Procedure for Speech and Language Clinicians , 1988 .

[11]  Paula D. Kohler,et al.  The state of school-based bilingual assessment: actual practice versus recommended guidelines. , 2007, Language, speech, and hearing services in schools.

[12]  Denise Perpich,et al.  Mean length of utterance levels in 6-month intervals for children 3 to 9 years with and without language impairments. , 2010, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[13]  Laurence B Leonard,et al.  Lexical diversity in the spontaneous speech of children with specific language impairment: application of D. , 2002, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[14]  R S Chapman,et al.  The relation between age and mean length of utterance in morphemes. , 1981, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[15]  Géza Kiss,et al.  Automated morphological analysis of clinical language samples , 2015, CLPsych@HLT-NAACL.

[16]  John Heilmann,et al.  Myths and Realities of Language Sample Analysis , 2010 .

[17]  David Malvern,et al.  Measuring vocabulary diversity using dedicated software , 2000 .

[18]  M. Rowe,et al.  Input and uptake at 7 months predicts toddler vocabulary: the role of child-directed speech and infant processing skills in language development , 2015, Journal of Child Language.

[19]  Thomas Klee,et al.  Clinical language sampling practices: results of a survey of speech-language pathologists in the United States , 1997 .

[20]  Roger W. Brown,et al.  A First Language: The Early Stages , 1974 .

[21]  Sarita Eisenberg,et al.  The Use of MLU for Identifying Language Impairment in Preschool Children: A Review , 2001 .

[22]  Karen A Hux,et al.  Language Sampling Practices: A Survey of Nine States , 1993 .

[23]  H. Scarborough.  Index of Productive Syntax , 1990, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[24]  Julie J. Masterson,et al.  Not Using a Computer in Language Assessment/Intervention , 1995 .

[25]  Raúl Rojas,et al.  SALT 2010 Bilingual S/E Version: A Tool for Assessing the Language Production of Bilingual (Spanish/English) Children. , 2010 .

[26]  Matthew Rispoli,et al.  Stalls and revisions: a developmental perspective on sentence production. , 2008, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[27]  Yvonne E Wren,et al.  Outcome measurement using naturalistic language samples: A feasibility pilot study using language transcription software and speech and language therapy assistants , 2014 .

[28]  Nan Bernstein Ratner,et al.  Measuring lexical diversity in children who stutter: application of vocd. , 2002, Journal of fluency disorders.

[29]  Gail T. Gillon,et al.  Assessing Language Production using SALT Software. A Clinician's Guide to Language Sample Analysis. New Zealand version , 2012 .