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Department of Computational Linguistics Language, Technology and Accessibility

Computer-assisted Language Sample Analysis

Analysis of spontaneous language can form part of the diagnosis of language development disorders in children. Unlike psychometric tests, language sample analyses can be repeated as often as desired. Thus, they prove to be an ideal instrument for recurrent assessment of children's language performance (Hönig and Nöth, 2017; Senn Baumgartner, 2022). The criterion-based evaluation of such samples is time-consuming. This is where computational linguistics can make a contribution (Voleti et al., 2020). In this way, assessments by professionals can be supported in areas of diagnostics in which standardized procedures are of limited informative value – such as in the context of multilingualism, older children and adolescents, or persons with cognitive impairments (Scharff Rethfeldt, 2020).

Weiterführende Informationen

Screenshot of computer-assisted language sample analysis interface

Digitally supported analysis of spontaneous speech (DigiSpon)

More about Digitally supported analysis of spontaneous speech (DigiSpon)

This project has at its core research into semi-automatic language sample analysis. The focus is on the development and evaluation of a software which can be used to support speech therapists in the diagnostics of language disorders in children. In a first phase, the goal is to create a corpus with spontaneous speech of children of ages four to six with typical and atypical language development in Swiss German and Standard German. This data is then used to train automatic speech recognition and automatic language sample analysis models. The process targeted is semi-automatic, with a human (i.e., an expert) in the loop.