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Assessment of prelinguistic vocalizations in real time: a comparison with phonetic transcription and assessment of inter-coder-reliability

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posted on 2019-11-12, 05:26 authored by Elisabeth Willadsen, Christina Persson, Kathryn Patrick, Anette Lohmander, D. Kimbrough Oller

This study investigated reliability of naturalistic listening in real time (NLRT) compared to phonetic transcription. Speech pathology students with brief training in NLRT assessed prelinguistic syllable inventory size and specific syllable types in typically developing infants. A second study also examined inter-coder reliability for canonical babbling, canonical babbling ratio and presence of oral stops in syllable inventory of infants with cleft palate, by means of NLRT.

In study 1, ten students independently assessed prelinguistic samples of five 12-month-old typically developing infants using NLRT and phonetic transcription. Coders assessed syllable inventory size as more than twice as large using phonetic transcription as NLRT.

Results showed a strong correlation between NLRT and phonetic transcription (syllables with more than five occurrences) for syllable inventory size (r = .60; p < .001). The methods showed similar results for inter-coder reliability of specific syllable types.

In study 2, three other students assessed prelinguistic samples of twenty-eight 12-month-old infants with cleft palate by means of NLRT. Results revealed perfect inter-coder agreement for presence/absence of canonical babbling, strong correlations between the three coders’ assessment of syllable inventory size (average r = .83; p < .001), but more inter-coder variability for agreement of specific syllable types.

In conclusion, NLRT is a reliable method for assessing prelinguistic measures in infants with and without cleft palate with inter-coder agreement levels comparable to phonetic transcription for specific syllable types.

Funding

A contribution to the present study was made possible by grant numbers U01DE018664 and U01DE018837 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)The article’s contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIDCR. Oller’s contribution to the study was funded in part by NIDCD DC011027, by NIDCD R01DC015108, and by the Plough Foundation.

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