CHILDES English Champaign Corpus

Matthew Rispoli Speech and Hearing Science University of Illinois mrispoli@illinois.edu

Pam Hadley Speech and Hearing Science University of Illinois phadley@illinois.edu

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Citation information

Hadley, P. A., Rispoli, M., Holt, J. K., Fitzgerald, C., & Bahnsen, A. (2014). Growth of finiteness in the third year of life: Replication and predictive validity. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57(3), 887-900.

In accordance with TalkBank rules, any use of data from this corpus must be accompanied by at least one of the above references.

Corpus Description

• 44 typically developing toddlers (22 female).
• All families spoke Standard American English.
• All toddlers demonstrated;
  • a passing score on the communication section of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ; Bricker & Squires, 1999) at 21 and 24 months of age. Bricker, D., & Squires, J. (1999). Ages & Stages Questionnaires: A parent-completed, child-monitoring system (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Brookes
  • expressive vocabulary abilities at or above the 10th percentile at 24 months (Fenson et al., 2007) Fenson, L., Marchman, V., Thal, D., Dale, P., Reznick, J., & Bates, E. (2007). MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.
  • production of at least two different words with each of the final consonants /t, d, s, z/ in their spontaneous language samples by 30 months.
• Longitudinal data were obtained at 6 measurement points, when children were approximately 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, and 36 months of age.
• Informed consent was obtained from the children’s parents, and the children assented to participation in play sessions at each measurement point
• Language samples were gathered in a lab playroom.
• Sessions lasted 1-hr, divided into two sampling contexts.
  • The first sampling context was parent–toddler free-play with age-appropriate toys.
  • The second sampling context included an examiner to introduce semi-structured play scenarios, creating opportunities for tense and agreement morphemes.
• Transcription was completed in multiple passes by trained transcribers.
  • Transcribers completed approximately 20 hrs. of training.
  • transcribers completed three consecutive training transcripts at 80% reliability overall and 90% reliability for tense and agreement morphemes.
  • 1st transcription pass: 1st transcriber listened to child utterances no more than 3 times. Words and utterances that could not be transcribed within 3 repetitions were marked as unintelligible.
  • 2nd transcription pass: 2nd transcriber completed a consensus pass, relistening to the recording and marking as unintelligible any part of the transcript that could not be confirmed.
  • 2nd transcriber removed tense and agreement morphemes that could not be confirmed.
  • Standardized word spellings to ensure that general measures of lexical diversity were not inflated (e.g., ducky and duck were counted as a single word).
  • Conventions regarding repetition, fillers, compounds, etc. followed Brown (1973) Table 7. p. 54. Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Harvard University Press.
• Transcripts were originally created in SALT, and converted to CHAT using the Salt2Chat program. Some inconsistencies with CHAT format may have resulted. Miller, J., & Iglesias, A. (2012). Systematic analysis of language transcripts (SALT), research version 2012 [computer software]. Middleton, WI: Salt Software, LLC.
• Further details of data collection and recording, participant demographics, examiner and transcriber training, play scenarios, and transcription conventions can be found in article listed above.

Acknowledgements