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The measurement of whole-word productions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2002

DAVID INGRAM
DAVID INGRAM
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
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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).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , November 2002 , pp. 713 - 733
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

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. I would like to thank the participants of those presentations for their comments, especially Barbara Hodson, Kim Oller, Matthew Rispoli, David Snow, and Amy Weiss. I also am grateful to my colleagues and students at Arizona State University, Roy Major, Jeanne Wilcox, Miriam Garlant, Cynthia Loatman, Patricia McCartney, for their comments and/or assistance, and especially Ferenc Bunta and Kelly Ingram who also provided invaluable help with the manuscript. Address for correspondence: David Ingram, Department of Speech and Hearing Science, P.O. Box 870102, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85257-8516, USA.