An Integrated Approach to Language Sample Analysis

The value of language sampling is documented in many of the readings that you will be encountering during this course.  So, the important question becomes, "What do we do with the sample, once it's collected and transcribed?".

I believe that our definition of language requires that we consider all aspects of language (i.e., pragmatics, syntax/morphology, semantics [even phonology, but that's a different class!]) as well as the interrelationships among these components.  To that end, we will be using several different kinds of analyses.  The first was developed by Lois Bloom and Margaret Lahey.  You may have heard their work labeled as the Content-Form-Use approach.  In the analysis method, the clinician considers both syntactic and semantic (relational) elements. 

The CFU system can be used with children who are in the earliest stages of development (i.e., one- and two-word stage) through the later stages of acquisition involving multiverb utterances. The focus of the analysis is on the main verb in each utterance or in the case of multiverb utterances, the relationship between the verbs. 

Click Here to View the Interactive Chart, which you'll be using to analyze language samples.  Notice that the chart is filled with links.  The green links refer to single verb categories, the blue to multiverb categories, and the red to coordinated (additional non-verb) categories.  Spend some time interacting with the chart to get the definitions of the categories as well as examples for each component in the system.

Click Here to View the Steps for Conducting the CFU Analysis.

Click Here to View Sample Utterances, along with the explanations for why the category/phase decisions were made.  Of course, the chart also contains numerous examples.