CHAPTER 7: Clinical Scoring and Transcription

Question 1

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE SCORING

Answer 1

• Age
• Dialect
• Physical and Personality Characteristics

Question 2

AGE

Answer 2

One of the factors that influences scoring and transcription.

• The younger the child, the more difficult it is to have the child respond to formal testing.
• Children behave in ways that interfere with transcription (vary in loudness and pitch, fail to keep a fixed distance from microphone of the recorder, relish in kicking the table, playing with microphone cords, etc.).
• Major reason that even the most well-mannered child is hard to score or transcribe: incomplete speech development.

Question 3

DIALECT

Answer 3

One of the factors that influences scoring and transcription.

• General American speech is used as the reference dialect.
• Clinicians must learn to transcribe appropriately the dialect of the client/patient.
• Clinicians must learn the phonological rules of the dialect and the boundaries for acceptable production of each allophone.
• Dialect differences between speaker and transcriber must be placed in proper perspective.

Question 4

PHYSICAL AND PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS

Answer 4

One of the factors that influences scoring and transcription.

• For example, a person who uses larger lip movements may be easier to transcribe than one who speaks with tight lips or clenched teeth.
• Rate of speech. Some talkers read or speak so fast that transcription can be difficult, if not impossible.
• A person’s voice quality can influence transcription.
• The interpersonal relationship between client and clinician. For example, when the examiner is also the child’s clinician, the child will be judged as more competent. This is hard to guard against.

Question 5

TASK FACTORS

Answer 5

In addition to the client factors, several characteristics of the speech task itself should be considered for possible influence on scoring or transcription.

• Intelligibility
• Linguistic Context and Response Requirements
• Successive Judgments
• Speech Sampling and Audio-Video Recording

Question 6

INTELLIGIBILITY

Answer 6

One of the task factors.

• Transcription of speech, even when meaning is known, is difficult.
• Clinicians should gloss the child’s intended words (targets) while obtaining conversational speech utterances from children with speech delays.
• Clinicians must attempt to determine, word-for-word, what the child intended to say at the time the sample is obtained.

Question 7

LINGUISTIC CONTEXT AND RESPONSE REQUIREMENTS

Answer 7

One of the task factors.

• Linguistic context: # and type of linguistic units (phonemes, syllables, words, etc.) in which the target linguistic unit(s) is (are) embedded.
• It is generally easier to transcribe a phoneme when it occurs in the context of a syllable, rather than a complete sentence.
• Response complexity: # of transcription responses per linguistic unit required of the clinician.
• It is easier to transcribe one target sound (or cluster) per unit (word, phrase, sentence, etc.) than to transcribe two or more targets per unit.

Question 8

SUCCESSIVE JUDGMENTS

Answer 8

One of the task factors.

• If a sample contains 10 successive target /s/ words and the first 9 words are judged correct, the 10th word may have to be markedly “wrong” to be perceived as such. This situation is extremely common that emphasizes high rates of target responses from clients.
• The clinician must make a series of rapid judgments. At some point in the series of judgments, the perceptual standard may become biased.
• Clinicians and speech aides who work daily with children should monitor their reliability: routine intrajudge reliability checks will help.

Question 9

SPEECH SAMPLING AND AUDIO-VIDEO RECORDING

Answer 9

One of the task factors.

• A portable recorder is the constant companion of the speech-language clinician.
• Video recording allows you to see more articulatory behavior, but not all articulatory behavior is linguistically significant.
• Utterances that might not be intelligible on audio may become so when viewed on video (eye gaze, gestures, or manipulation of objects). For children with affective disorders such as autism, this method of research is vital.