Faculty Publications

The Measurement of Whole-Word Productions

Comments

ERIC Document - EJ777155 found in the ERIC Database

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Language Acquisition; Phonology; Measures (Individuals); Word Recognition; English; Sino Tibetan Languages; Spanish; Bilingual Students; Hearing Impairments; Assistive Technology; Children;

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Child Language

Volume

v29

Issue

n4

First Page

713

Last Page

733

Abstract

Attempts to measure phonological acquisition have largely focused on segments, with less effort made to examine whole-word productions. This article proposes four measures designed to estimate a child's whole-word abilities: 1. the "phonological mean length of utterance", a measure of whole-word complexity for both child and target words, 2. the "proportion of whole-word proximity", a measure of the proximity between the child's word and its target form, 3. the "proportion of whole-word correctness", a measure of the number of words produced correctly relative to the sample size, and 4. the "proportion of whole-word variability", a measure of how often a child produces words in distinct phonological shapes. The central measure is the Phonological Mean Length of Utterance, which can be used to identify a child's stage of acquisition, to assess proximity to target words, and to evaluate the complexity of words. The value of the new measures will be demonstrated through preliminary applications to a range of contexts; i.e. monolingual children acquiring English (five children, 0;11 to 1;5), Cantonese (one child, 1;7), and Spanish (5 children, 2;2 to 2;11), bilingual children acquiring Hungarian-English (one child, 2;0) and Spanish-English (3 children, 2;4 to 2;11), children with phonological impairment (eighteen children, 2;11 to 5;3), and children with cochlear implants (six children, 4;5 to 7;11). (Contains 1 footnote.) [ Preliminary reports of this line of investigation were presented at the Child Phonology Conference, University of Northern Iowa, June 2000, and the annual meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Washington, D.C., November, 2000.]

Department

Department of Philosophy and Religion

Original Publication Date

2002

Object Description

1 PDF file (20 pages)

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Copyright

©2002 David Ingram

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Link to Full Text

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