The measurement of whole-word productions

Attempts to measure phonological acquisition have largely focused on segments, with less effort made to examine whole-word productions. This article proposes four measures designed to estimate a child's whole-word abilities: I. the PHONOLOGICAL MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE, a measure of whole-word complexity for both child and target words, 2. the PROPORTION OF WHOLE-WORD PROXIMITY, a measure of the proximity between the child's word and its target form, 3. the PROPORTION OF WHOLE.-WORD CORRECTNESS, a measure of the number of words produced correctly relative to the sample size, and 4. them PROPORTION OF WHOLE-WORD VARIABILITY, a measure of how often a child produces words in distinct phonological shapes. The central measure is the Phonological Mean Length of Utterance, which can be used to identify a child's stage of acquisition, to assess proximity to target words, and to evaluate the Complexity of words. The value of the new measures will be demonstrated through preliminary applications to a range of contexts; i.e. monolingual children acquiring English (five children, 0 ; II to I ; 5), Cantonese (one child, I; 7), and Spanish (5 children, 2; 2 to 2; 11), bilingual children acquiring Hungarian-English (one child, 2 ; o) and Spanish-English (3 children, 2; 4 to 2; II), children with phonological impairment (eighteen children, 2; II to 5; 3), and children with cochlear implants (six children, 4; 5 to 7; II).