SLPRCTClinical linguistics & phonetics2018

A software program to assist coding of prelinguistic vocalizations in real time.

Elisabeth Willadsen, Christina Persson, Duncan Appelbe

PMID 29913085

WHAT IT FOUND

TimeStamper lets a coder mark canonical and non-canonical syllables while listening in real time, stamps each keypress, calculates the canonical babbling ratio, and shows only the last annotation.

It is described for assessing infant prelinguistic vocalizations.

Key findings

01TimeStamper records a time marker for each syllable keypress and automatically calculates the canonical babbling ratio.

02The coder sees only the last annotation, to avoid influencing the canonical babbling judgement.

03The tool is described for assessing prelinguistic vocalizations of infants with autism spectrum disorder, hearing impairment, or cleft palate.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat it means for SLPs

Read the rest of this summary

You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.

Already have one?

What it does not show

The paper describes a tool and a coding procedure, not a trial that tested whether the tool improves diagnosis or treatment decisions. Reliability is mentioned for student listeners, but the supplied text does not report the number of listeners, recordings, children, or agreement values. The coder cannot pause the recording, so the method depends on the coder's real-time attention and memory. The tool assesses prelinguistic vocalizations and canonical babbling ratio, not later speech or language outcomes.

Declared interests

The supplied text gives no funding or conflict-of-interest statement. The article is marked as supported by NIH extramural research funds.

The easy way to misread this

Do not read this as evidence that TimeStamper diagnoses speech disorder or improves outcomes. The supplied text describes the program and its coding steps, and it does not report original trial results for infants.

Read it on PubMed →