Automated Assessment of Child Vocalization Development Using LENA.

Purpose: To produce a novel, efficient measure of children's expressive vocal development on the basis of automatic vocalization assessment (AVA), child vocalizations were automatically identified and extracted from audio recordings using Language Environment Analysis (LENA) System technology.

Method: Assessment was based on full-day audio recordings collected in a child's unrestricted, natural language environment. AVA estimates were derived using automatic speech recognition modeling techniques to categorize and quantify the sounds in child vocalizations (e.g., protophones and phonemes). These were expressed as phone and biphone frequencies, reduced to principal components, and inputted to age-based multiple linear regression models to predict independently collected criterion-expressive language scores. From these models, we generated vocal development AVA estimates as age-standardized scores and development age estimates.

Result: AVA estimates demonstrated strong statistical reliability and validity when compared with standard criterion expressive language assessments.

Conclusions: Automated analysis of child vocalizations extracted from full-day recordings in natural settings offers a novel and efficient means to assess children's expressive vocal development. More research remains to identify specific mechanisms of operation.