Better, Faster, Stronger: Outcomes of a Language Sample Transcription and Coding Training Study

Although language sample analysis (LSA) is considered an important tool for high-quality child language assessment, surveys have found that its use is quite limited by school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Two of the reasons often cited are limited time and limited expertise (Kemp & Klee, 1997; Pavelko et al., 2016). This study aims to evaluate the outcomes of a language sample training program on SLP students’ accuracy, efficiency, and confidence with language sample transcription and coding. Upper-division SLP undergraduates and graduate students participated in a self-paced language sample training and practice program. Participants completed online language transcription and coding training and practiced transcribing 7-10 narrative child language samples. After each one, they entered information into the quiz tool in the university’s online learning management system and received automated, individualized, and specific feedback. The accuracy and time needed for the language transcriptions were recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that the participants significantly increased their accuracy and reduced the time needed for transcription and coding. They also reported a significant increase in their confidence level with language sample transcription. The results suggest that increased training and practice opportunities that involve specific feedback will better prepare new clinicians to use language sample analysis in clinical practice

Developmental differences in beta and theta power during sentence processing

Although very young children process ongoing language quickly and effortlessly, research indicates that they continue to improve and mature in their language skills through adolescence. This prolonged development may be related to differing engagement of semantic and syntactic processes. This study used event related potentials and time frequency analysis of EEG to identify developmental differences in neural engagement as children (ages 10–12) and adults performed an auditory verb agreement grammaticality judgment task. Adults and children revealed very few differences in comprehending grammatically correct sentences. When identifying grammatical errors, however, adults displayed widely distributed beta and theta power decreases that were significantly less pronounced in children. Adults also demonstrated a significant P600 effect, while children exhibited an apparent N400 effect. Thus, when identifying subtle grammatical errors in real time, adults display greater neural activation that is traditionally associated with syntactic processing whereas children exhibit greater activity more commonly associated with semantic processing. These findings support previous claims that the cognitive and neural underpinnings of syntactic processing are still developing in adolescence, and add to them by more clearly identifying developmental changes in the neural oscillations underlying grammatical processing