Child Productions

This page describes how to annotate the child's own productions in SEEDLingS files.

When you are listening to/annotating/checking a SEEDLingS audio or video, you should code the child's own speech just like you would any other speech. That is, if the child says an object word, you need to code it!

If you’re checking a file and the kid says “ball” but that hadn't been coded, you need to add “ball &=n_y_CHI” (or the appropriate annotation, using our normal rules).

For child productions, the same rules of what’s codeable apply (concrete, imageable nouns). Child productions should be coded when it is clear that the child is labeling something or referencing an object, OR when an adult confirms the utterance. We code the intended object word. For example, if the baby says “ba!” and someone responds, “Yes, that’s your ball,” then we would code as:ball &=n_y_CHI_0x123456 .

Atypical Phonology

It doesn't have to sound exactly like an adult would say "ball"! If they say "ba" but it seems like they're referring to a ball (e.g. they're holding a ball and their mom says "What's that?"), you should code it as "ball".

Parents often refer to an object by a nickname (ex. "baba" referring to a bottle). If the parent refers to a "baba" in the file, and then the child subsequently uses the same form, then you can use the child form as a word. Making this decision might entail opening the Basic Level in Subject Files to see if adults are coded using the child form of the word and if the child form is the most common form.

Multi-word utterances

1. What counts as a multi-word utterance? A MWU is when the child strings together multiple words that combine meaning across them. For instance, "thank you" is not a MWU, but "eat carrot" and "my ball" and "hi doggy" are.

   1. We make note of all multi-word utterances, even if they don't contain an object word.

   2. Err on the side of including such utterances, or ask staff/grad students for clarification.

2. If the child produces a MWU during an audio or video file:

   1. Code any object words as you usually would. That is, if the child says, "my carrot," code "carrot &=n_y_CHI" in addition to the MWU.

   2. Note the multi-word utterance as follows:

      1. Audios:

         1. Add a new comment with the utterance.

         2. Add a second new comment with exactly this phrase: child multi-word utterance

         3. It should look like:

         %xcom: I want the button

         %xcom: child multi-word utterance

      2. Videos:

         1. In the object field, use this exact format: %com: mwu

         2. In the utterance_type field, put in quotes what the child said.

         3. Put NA in the other fields.

         4. It should look like:

         %com: mwu, "It's my juice cup!", NA, NA, NA

FAQ

• Err on the side of including child utterances that you think count as a word. Charlotte (and others) will go through each coded child utterance to verify it and to phonetically transcribe it, so use your best judgement, but it's better to include words that we'll remove later than to never make a note of them in the first place.

• This is NOT to be confused with the recent %pho tier change. You do not need to manually type in a blank "%pho: ###" tier when you add a child word, because those can be automatically added with a script later. However, you DO need to add the annotation (e.g. “ball &=n_y_CHI”) manually. Scripts can't listen to these files to add words, otherwise you'd all be out of a job!

• Feel free to ask other RAs, the staff, or Charlotte/Shannon if you're not sure!