Sound Effects and Idiosyncratic Forms

Sound Effects

Sound effects are non-word vocalizations which represent specific sounds such as those made by an animal, e.g., "meow", or an object, e.g., "vroom". Words like "shh" and "psst" are not coded as sound effects because they have word status, that is, they are common substitutes for specific words, i.e., "shh" for "be quiet" and "psst" for "hey" or "look at me".

When a sound effect is essential to the meaning or structure of the utterance, it should be entered as any other word except it should begin with a percent sign (%). There aren't recommended spellings for these sound-effect words. Just represent them as accurately as possible and try to be consistent. For example,
   C The dog went %grr.
   C Then the boy heard %ribbit_ribbit.

Notice that the sound effect in the second example consists of two sounds, "ribbit ribbit". These sounds are linked together so they count as a single word to avoid overly inflating measures such as "mean length of utterance" and "number of total words".

If the sound effect is not essential to the meaning or structure of the utterance do not enter it as a word; instead note its occurrence with a comment using braces { } or a separate line beginning with an equal sign = as they do contribute to the overall quality of the language sample.For example,
   C The dog growl/ed {child makes growling sounds} at them.
   C Then the boy heard the frog {ribbit ribbit}.
   C They fell down.
   = child makes falling down sounds

Idiosyncratic Forms

In the process of mastering the phonological system, young children often produce speech that differs from the adult version. Although these idiosyncratic forms are not adult-like productions, they are stable productions by the child. They are consistent in reference to an object, person, or situation. It is not uncommon for these forms to remain in a child's vocabulary for many years. If such forms are interpretable by family members or other familiar persons, you can assume that they are idiosyncratic forms rather than babbling, mispronunciations, or word errors.

When transcribing idiosyncratic forms, enter a percentage (%) symbol at the beginning of the idiosyncratic form used by the child. Idiosyncratic forms are treated as normal words for analysis purposes. For example,
   C My %vroom {car}.

   E Would you like a cookie?
   C %coopa {cookie}.