Language Sample Analysis: Manual
(revised 10/05/2013)
General Procedures
1. What to transcribe?
a. For the child, transcribe everything that he/she says, including nonverbal vocalizations
(e.g., ribit, woofwoof) or disfluencies (e.g., um, uh).
b. For the examiner or parent, transcribe only the words that were said. You can skip
nonverbal vocalizations or disfluencies within an utterance.
C (um) he likes that. (we need to transcribe um for the child)
E I think he hates that. rather than E (um) I think he hates that. (we can skip um
in the examiner’s utterance)
2. For each child utterance,
a. Transcribe the words that the child said and put mazes within parentheses (see below).
b. Mark grammatical morphemes for usage and errors following the basic morpheme
transcription conventions in Section 2 below. (Note: In the assignment, you do not have
to code the grammatical morphemes for the adults)
Note: You may want to run these procedures in separate passes.
Transcription Format
1. The following is entered in the dialogue box for new transcripts:
a. Information lines are headed with +.
+ CA: #;##
+ Transcriber:
b. Speaker lines
1) Utterances spoken by the child begin with C.
2) Utterances spoken by the examiner begin with E.
3) Utterances spoken by the parent begin with P.
c. Comment Lines are headed with an equal sign =
1) Comment lines can be used for examiner comments about the sampling situation or
transcription
= recording paused for bathroom break
= C talking in high pitched shrieky voice
2. End of Utterance Punctuation: Only five ending punctuations are allowed.
a. Statements made by the child or examiner should end in a period (.).
C I see a dump truck.
b. Questions should end with a question mark (?).
C What is that?
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c. When a speaker is interrupted by something, the utterance ends with a carat (^). NOTE
that ^ should NOT be followed by any other punctuation.
C I want ^
E What do you want?
d. When the speaker abandons an utterance or fails to complete it, the utterance is marked
with a final greater than sign (>). NOTE that > should NOT be followed by any other
punctuation.
C I was going >
3. Rules for word transcription
a. For unintelligible words/phrases/sentences, put three X’s in the transcription, regardless
of the size.
C xxx.
C I want xxx.
C I want xxx basketball.
b. Words need not be adult-like, such as Lookit or choochoo.
c. Spelling must be consistent. Otherwise, SALT will count different spellings as different
words, such as cuz and because. When the child uses variations, transcribe what the child
says and use a word root identifier followed by the conventional spelling.
cuz|because
wanta|wanna
baba|bottle
wawa|water
However, if the child simply makes articulation errors (e.g., dis for this), you can
transcribe it as if the child produces adult forms, e.g., C this one (even if the child says
dis one)
d. Multi-word terms are transcribed as one word without in-between spaces so that SALT
analyzes them as a single unit.
1) Proper Names: MrJones (instead of Mr Jones)
2) Titles: TheThreeBears (instead of The Three Bears)
3) Compound words: icecream (instead of ice cream), frenchfries (instead of french
fries)
4) Numbers: twentyfive (instead of twenty five or twenty-five, SALT is not able to
recognize hyphen within an utterance)
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e. When the child only produces part of a word, we put an asterisk after the segment or
syllable and mark it as a maze with parenthesis (see below).
C I (w*) wanna play.
C How about (the pe*) the playdoh?
f. Sound effects that are not part of an utterance
E What do you hear?
C {woof woof}.
NOTE: if the sound effects are embedded within verbal responses, we do NOT use
brackets {}. Instead, we transcribe them as words. These will be included in the
analyses, such as MLU counting and word root. Please note that the spelling of these
sound effects must be consistent.
C The dog says woofwoof.
g. Counting, spelling, and other rote sequences
C {one two three}. or C {counts to three}.
C {S T O P}. or C {spells the word stop}.
h. Recitation and singing
C {recites nursery rhyme “itsybitsy spider”}.
C {sings “happy birthday you happy birthday you”}.
Note: Recitation typically involves children repeating lines/utterances from poems,
books, songs, and so on that they remember via rote learning. This does not include
utterances that are quotations of someone’s speech. For instance,
C He said “go away”. (NOT C He said {“go away”}).
This is because “go away” in the example, by definition, does not involve “rote learning.”
i. For catenatives gonna, wanna, hafta, needa, gotta, etc., they should be transcribed as the
way they are.
C I (w*) wanna play. (NOT I wanna|want to play).
C He/’s[aux] gonna run. (NOT he/’s[aux] gonna|going to run)
j. Spelling conventions for some specific words: Nitenite, lookit, nope, okay (not OK),
yeah, yep
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k. Some vocalizations have conventional meaning, such as uhhuh and mhm. These
conventional forms should be transcribed as individual words. Here are the spelling
conventions for some of those words.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
oh
hey
oops
ew
mhm (meaning yes)
huh (as a question marker)
whoa (as an exclamation marker)
wow
uhoh
ouch
uhhuh (meaning yes)
uhuh (meaning no)
nuhuh (meaning no)
nuh (meaning no)
4. Rules for utterance segmentation
a. To determine the boundary of utterances, we use the following cues together: 1)
intonation, 2) pause, 3) end of thought, 4) end of sentence, 5) change in speaker, and 6)
situational change. That is, utterance segmentation is based on multiple cues.
1) Intonation
a) Typically, there is pitch reset at the beginning of a new intonation contour or
syllable lengthening at the end of a contour.
b) The intonation could be rising (for questions) or falling (for statements).
c) If a clause is produced with two intonation contours, then it should be segmented
as TWO separate utterances. This segmentation is important because it will affect
the analysis of utterance length and grammaticality.
C The dog.
C Running.
2) (Silent) Pause
a) If an intonation contains a pause of more than 2 seconds, it should be segmented
as separate utterances.
b) NOTE that two intonation contours may have no in-between pause.
b. For long run-on utterances (i.e., the child produces many clauses within one intonation
contour), we use a further grammatical rule to divide up the utterance after two
independent clauses. These are clauses with a subject and verb that are coordinated with
the conjunctions and, and then, or, but, or so. Example:
C My parents went on a cruise and my older brother stayed at his friend’s house and
I went to may aunt’s house and I brought my dog and my fish with me. 
C My parents went on a cruise and my older brother stayed at his friend’s house.
C and I went to my aunt’s house and I brought my dog and my fish with me.
• NOTE: This segmentation rule would apply to other conjunctions (such as because) if
the child used that conjunction to chain clauses together, rather than for
subordination.
C Him telling his mommy to come because he wanted to play.
C Because the ground was too hard.
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c. Transcribing yes & no, vocatives, and attention-getters: When these words immediately
precede another utterance by the same speaker, they are transcribed as part of that
following utterance and set off by a comma, unless the word is clearly separated from
the following utterance by pausing, intonation, or a change in speaker or context.
1) Yes and No responses to a prior comment or question
E It’s time to go.
C No, I wanna play some more.
2) Interjections such as ooh or wow
C Ooh, that’s pretty.
3) Attention getters, such as using another person’s name or saying look to get another
person’s attention
C Mommy, here’s another one.
C Look, I found another one.
5. Mazes in spoken language are the words that do not contribute meaning to the sentence.
There are several types of mazes, including filled pauses, repetition, and revision. When you
encounter mazes in the child’s speech, you need to transcribe these words and put them in
parenthesis. Please do NOT just skip these words in transcriptions. SALT will not count
word within parenthesis for MLU computation.
a. Filled pauses refer to conventional but non-lexical one-syllable filler vocalizations, such
as., um, uh, ah, such as
C (um) he is (uh) at home.
C The dog (um) is (ah) very happy.
b. Repetitions denote repeated linguistic units (e.g., segment, syllable, word) that do not
signal emphatic meaning. It can include part-word repetitions and whole-word
repetitions.
1) Part-word repetitions: Part-word repetition refers to repetition of sound segments or
syllables of a word.
C The dog is (e*) eating a cake.
C He is (ou*) out of the house.
C The zebra is chasing the (di*) dinosaur.
2) Whole-word repetition refers to the repetition of single words or multiple words.
Always maze the first part in the repetition.
C (She) she is drinking (the) the water.
C He is (in the) in the house.
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c. Revisions refer to reliably recognizable modifications of a unit already produced by the
speaker, which result in the alteration of lexical, morphological, syntactic, semantic or
phonological material. Like repetitions, always maze the first part and keep the later part.
e.g.,
C (She) the dog is in the house.
C The dog is (out of the) in the house.
C (The ca*) the dog is in the house.
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SECTION 2: Conventions for Coding Morphology
General Rules:
A. Obligatory bound grammatical morphemes are separated from the word root with a
backslash (/). In this way, SALT will count it as two morphemes.
B. Contracted forms (e.g., he’s, isn’t) are slashed off with a backslash.
1.
2.
Plural (/s), e.g., C boys  C boy/s ; C knives.  C knife/s.
• Do NOT slash off: single entity forms, such as scissors (NOT scissor/s) or pants
(NOT pant/s).
•
Do NOT slash off irregular plural.
C I have two feet.  C I have two feet. (NOT C I have two foot/s)
C The men stop.  C The men stop. (NOT C The man/s stop)
•
Note: we slash off overgeneralization errors of plurals and mark the error as [opl],
e.g., C two foots.  C two foot/s[EW:feet][opl].
C two mans.  two man/s[EW:men][opl].
Possessive (/z), e.g., C the boy’s hat  C the boy/z hat.
• Do NOT slash off possessive pronouns such as yours (NOT your/s)
•
3.
If both plural and possessive are marked in the same word. Here is how you code
them: C the boys’ teacher  C the boy/s/z teacher
Third person singular present (/3s), e.g., C he walks  C he walk/3s.
• NOTE that words like goes and studies are regular forms, although the spelling is
slightly different.
C He goes to school.  C He go/3s to school.
C She studies at home.  C She study/3s at home.
•
Do NOT slash off code irregular third person singular –s. English has three irregular
third person singular present verb forms: has, does, says.
C He has a book.  C He has a book. (NOT C He have/3s a book)
C She does her job.  C she does her job. (NOT C She do/3s her job)
C The cat says meow.  C The cat says meow. (NOT C The cat say/3s meow)
•
Note: we slash off overgeneralization errors of third person singular –s and mark it
as [o3s], e.g., C He haves a book.  C He have/3s[EW:has][o3s] a book.
C She dos the work well.  C She do/3s[EW:does][o3s] the work well.
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4.
Present participle (/ing): C He is running C He is[aux] run/ing.
•
5.
6.
Do not code the following: a) gerund (when the –ing form is more like a noun, but not
showing present progressive), b) Verb-ing as adjectives
C Running is good C Running cis[cop] good. (NOT Run/ing).
C The boy enjoyed walking The boy enjoy/ed walking. (NOT walk/ing)
C It’s interesting  C It/’cs[cop] interesting. (NOT interest/ing)
Regular past tense (/ed)
C He jumped C He jump/ed.
C He studied the book.  He study/ed the book.
•
Note: we slash off overgeneralization errors of past tense and mark it as [op], e.g.,
C He goed to school.  C He go/ed[EW:went][op] to school.
C I eated a cake.  C I eat/ed[EW:ate][op] a cake.
•
Do not code the following: a) predicate adjectives, b) –ed/–en in the past participle
form, and c) irregular past tense. There are NO codes for these forms.
C He ate (Not: He eat/ed)
C He’s tired C He/’cs[cop] tired (NOT tire/ed)
C She’s interested.  She/’cs[cop] interested (NOT interest/ed)
C She has walked for three hours.  She has[aux] walked (NOT walk/ed) for
three hour/s.
C She has eaten.  She has[aux] eaten (NOT eat/en)
C He ran.  He ran (NOT run/ed)
Uncontracted copula and auxiliary BE
• These BE forms include: am, are, is, was, were.
• As for contracted copula and auxiliary BE, we use a word code after each BE form to
distinguish them for analysis. For copula BE, we put a “c” before each form and add a
[cop] code at the end of the word. For auxiliary BE, we add an [aux] code at the end
of the word. NOTE that the code is attached to the end of the target word
WITHOUT a space.
C I am happy.  C I cam[cop] happy.
C You are playing.  C You are[aux] play/ing.
C He was at home.  C He cwas[cop] at home.
C The horse is hungry.  The horse cis[cop] hungry.
C The horse is running.  The horse is[aux] run/ing.
care[cop]
C They are at home.  C They
at home.
C The dogs are biting.  The dog/s are[aux] bite/ing.
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7.
Contracted copula BE (e.g., /’cs[cop]) and auxiliary BE (e.g., /’s[aux])
• The contracted BE forms include: ’m, ’s, ’re.
• Because copula and auxiliary BE have identical phonological forms, we not only
slash them off from the word root, but also use word codes to code each of them
([cop] for copula, [aux] for auxiliary). This allows us to distinguish these two in the
analysis. NOTE that the code should attach to the end of the target word WITHOUT
a space.
C I’m happy.  C I/’cm[cop] happy.
C I’m eating.  C I/’m[aux] eat/ing.
C You’re a king.  C You/’cre[cop] a king.
C You’re playing.  C You/’re[aux] play/ing.
C He’s at home.  C He/’cs[cop] at home.
C He’s running.  C He/’s[aux] run/ing.
• Note: There is an apostrophe between the slash and the contracted morphemes. This
coding rule applies to contracted modals (e.g., He’ll he/’ll, I’d  I/’d)
• Note: We do not mark infinitive be because it does change with person, number,
and tense.
C I will be happy.  C I will be happy (NOT C I will cbe[cop] happy).
C I will be running.  C I will be run/ing (NOT C I will be[aux] run/ing).
C I want to be here.  C I want to be there. (NOT C I want to cbe[cop] here).
8.
Auxiliary DO (e.g., do[aux], does[aux])
• Auxiliary DO include: do, does, did.
C Do you like it?  C Do[aux] you like it?
C Does he like it?  C Does[aux] he like it?
C How did he like it  C How did[aux] he like it?
• Note: Do NOT confusion auxiliary DO and the main verb DO. No code for main
verb DO.
C You do a lot of work.
C He did a lot of work.
C he does a lot of work.
9.
A) Uncontracted auxiliary HAVE (e.g., has[aux], have[aux])
• The uncontracted auxiliary HAVE include: has, have, had
C You have done enough.  C You have[aux] done enough.
C You haven’t done that.  C You have[aux]/n’t done that
C He has done enough.  C He has[aux] done enough.
C He hasn’t done that.  C He has[aux]/n’t done that.
C He had gone.  C He had[aux] gone.
B) Contracted auxiliary HAVE (e.g., /’has)
• The contracted auxiliary HAVE include: ’s, ’ve
C You’ve done enough.  C You/’have[aux] done enough.
C He’s done enough.  C He/’has[aux] done enough.
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•
Note: Do NOT confusion auxiliary HAVE and the main verb HAVE. No code for
main verb HAVE.
C You have a book.
C He has a book. (NOT He has[aux] a book.)
C He has to go. (NOT He has[aux] to go.) .
In the verb phrase “has to”, “has” is still a main verb based on English
grammar.
10. A)
B)
Uncontracted Modals (e.g., will[modal], could[modal])
C I will go  C I will[modal] go.
C He should go  C He should[modal] go.
C The dog can run again.  The dog can[modal] run again.
C He couldn’t go  C He could[modal]/n’t want to go.
Contracted Modals (e.g., /’ll, /’d)
C I’ll go  C I/’ll[modal] go.
C He’d like to go.  C He/’d[modal] like to go.
11. Contracted negatives, e.g. doesn’t  does[aux]/n’t; isn’tis/n’t
C He isn’t sleeping.  He is[aux]/n’t sleep/ing.
C He isn’t tall.  He cis[cop]/n’t tall.
C She doesn’t like it.  She does[aux]/n’t like it.
•
Do NOT code the following forms: don’t, won’t, can’t . However, for don’t, we still
code it as [aux]. For can’t and won’t, we still code them as [modal].
C I don’t know.  C I don’t[aux] know. (NOT C I do[aux]/n’t know).
C He can’t go.  C He can’t[modal] go. (NOT C He can[modal]/’t go).
C You won’t go.  C You won’t[modal] go. (NOT C You will[modal]/n’t go).
Cautions: Pronunciation
1. The same morpheme may be produced/spelled differently in English, but the code for the
same morpheme should not change, such as
• Plural -s: books, dogs, watches.  book/s, dog/s, watch/s
• Possessive: The cat’s fish  The cat/z fish
The dog’s bone  The dog/z bone
Alex’s hat  Alex/z hat
• Third person singular: walks, stands, washes  walk/3s, stand/3s, wash/3s
• Past –ed: walked, played, studied  walk/ed, play/ed, study/ed
2. When you slash grammatical morphemes off the word roots, remember to use the base
spelling of the word root.
C He moved the box.  C He move/ed the box (Not: mov/ed)
C He’s moving the box.  He/’s[aux] move/ing the box (Not: mov/ing)
C He’s hitting.  He/’s[aux] hit/ing (Not: hit/ting or hitt/ing)
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Omission Errors
1.
When a grammatical morpheme is omitted in obligatory contexts, we use an asterisk (*)
before the morpheme to mark the omission.
C He move yesterday.  C He move/*ed yesterday.
C He moving.  C He/*’s[aux] move/ing. OR C He *is move/ing.
C The house beautiful.  C The house *cis[cop] beautiful.
2.
When the context is not clear for which morpheme was omitted (e.g., He run), the default is
the omission of 3s.
C He eat.  C He eat/*3s
C He run.  C He run/*3s
However, if the context is clear, we should always code by the context.
Commission Errors
1.
When a child use a wrong copula be or auxiliary be…
C He are happy.  C He care[cop][EW:cis] happy.
C They’s happy  C They/’cs[cop][EW:care] happy.
C He are running.  C He are[aux][EW:is] run/ing.
C They’s running.  C They/’s[aux][EW:are] run/ing.
•
2.
Note: Do NOT slash or code anything within the EW code
C it don’t run.  C it don’t[aux][EW:doesn’t] run. (NOT: [EW:does/n’t])
C They’s running.  C They/’s[aux][EW:are] run/ing. (NOT: [EW:are[aux]])
When the child uses a wrong word, you use a [EW:TARGET]
C him ate it all.  C Him[EW:he] ate it all.
C this is a egg.  C This cis[cop] a[EW:an] egg.
3. Overgeneralization of /s, /3s, or /ed
What SALT Does Not Code:
Because of the SALT conventions, we do NOT slash off the following morphemes.
• Single entity forms, such as pants, scissors, glasses
• Other inflectional morphemes, such as comparative –er (e.g., taller), superlative –est
(e.g., tallest)
• Let’s
• Derivational morphemes, such as –ation, un-, -al, -ful
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