The Future of Language Environment Data Collection
Posted by Mia Moe on Wed, Feb 10, 2010 @ 09:28 AM
D. Kimbrough Oller, Ph.D., Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence, School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Memphis.
The LENA System makes day-long, high fidelity recording possible and practical for the first time.
As a result, the naturalistic environment of infants and children can now be assessed with enormous new breadth of perspective. I find both recording and processing of recorded files on my laptop computer to be easy and convenient. But much more, the software developments that are made available with LENA provide an automated window into features of the language environment that are otherwise extremely difficult or impossible to evaluate.
LENA provides excellent measures of the amount of adult speech in the child's vicinity, amount of child vocalization and of conversational turns, but in addition, the freeware ADEX makes it possible to extract many additional pieces of information, such as who initiated conversations and how long their utterances were in various circumstances.
The LENA Reports provide outstanding conveniences in terms of locating utterances in representative and/or high vocal activity periods so that listening or transcription can be focused to the specific needs of the researcher or clinician. This naturalistic recording and automated approach makes truly representative evaluation possible for the first time. The research produced through LENA has turned me around - I have previously conducted my empirical work on infant vocalization using laboratory measures and small samples. Now we can also direct our attention to enormous naturalistic samples with powerful new statistical tools to enhance perspectives on development and communication disorders.
To view a demo of the LENA System - click here.