Research

From toddlers with cochlear implants to adults with primary progressive aphasia (and everything in between), SALT has been part of researching people’s spoken language. Oh, and apes’ too! One of my great joys is consulting with researchers from Communication Sciences and Disorders, Psychology, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Ed Psych and more and finding out their research interests to determine how...

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“The RDF tool has helped my research immensely. I can quickly generate pilot data from a dozen samples or efficiently compile data from hundreds of samples at the end of the project. The tool exports data in spreadsheets compatible with the main software tools that I use, so I never have to worry about compatibility or converting to different formats.”   John Heilmann, Ph.D.,  Univer...

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The SALT reference databases use a very specific set of conventions for marking bound morphemes. Our protocols do not represent the only way to mark morphemes but if you want to compare your sample against our databases, it is important for you to use these same conventions. If you aren’t interested in the nuts and bolts, just skip down to the “Summary” section. It’s the most condensed version ...

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Rhea Paul, PhD, CCC-SLP Sacred Heart University Rhea received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981, and has taught language development and disorders in children for over 30 years. You probably know her as the author of the quintessential textbook: Language Disorders from Infancy Through Adolescence. Her latest projects include her podcast, Let’s Talk About Super Special K...

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You mean, I can’t just record the language sample right into SALT? When talking with people new to SALT I frequently hear, “Oh, I have to transcribe the sample? Can’t I just record into SALT?” There is typically a look of disappointment when I reply that the speech recognition software available to us today just isn’t accurate enough for our purposes. The goal of LSA is to document functional,...

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In the first installment of this article we discussed the case of Brendan Dassey, a young man with language disorder who was tried and convicted of murder despite profoundly problematic police interrogation methods. Brendan was a minor at the time. Brendan’s case was both tragic and fascinating. It was even the focus of a Netflix documentary, Making a Murderer. More importantly, it raises big q...

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This article is based on a telephone conversation between Sally Miles, Ph.D., CCC-SLP and Karen Andriacchi M.S., CCC-SLP. The conversation was a follow-up to the language sample transcription [by SALT Services] and the analysis [by Sally using SALT software] of the Brendan Dassey interrogations made famous by the Netflix documentary, “Making A Murderer”. The first half of the interview (today’s...

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Guest authors: Lori Vaughn & Janna B. Oetting, Louisiana State University  Janna: Welcome to the Ph.D. program Lori. You need to learn SALT. Lori: My head is about to explode from everything in this Ph.D. program! Janna: You will find that you can’t live without SALT. Lori: They tried to teach me SALT in graduate school. Janna: Now is the perfect time to master SALT. As part of your f...

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Dr. Kimbrough Oller Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence The University of Memphis School of Communication Sciences and Disorders The technology produced by the LENA Foundation for all-day recording in the home with a battery-powered device worn in infants' and children's clothing has added a major new method to the study of the acquisition of language. There has been a great deal of emph...

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