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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2009 Aug 28;52(6):1579–1594. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2009/06-0145)

Table 1.

Operational Definitions for Utterance Types (Adapted from Ertmer, Strong, & Sadagopan, 2003).

  1. Non-words: Vocalizations that can be transcribed but are not considered words or attempts to a say a word (e.g., isolated vowels, babbling; Context: child looks around the room without focus on any particular object. Child: “/i/”). Vegetative (e.g. burping) and reflexive sounds (e.g., coughing, sneezing) and laughing and crying are not analyzed.

  2. Pre-words: Vocalizations that appear to be used in an attempt to convey meaning but do not meet the phonological criterion for single words (e.g., Context: child reaches hand out toward a baby doll, as in a request and says /i/). May include multi-component utterances in which none of the components can be classified as words.

  3. Single words: Utterances must meet both of the following requirements to be classified as words:
    1. The utterance appears to be
      1. elated to partner's comments, or
      2. related to objects or actions in the current situation, or
      3. an attempt to initiate a new topic of conversation.
        Note: The following indicators are used to determine whether an utterance was intended to convey meaning. Child: pointing, gesturing, facial expressions, change in activity or behavior (e.g., child says [da] while pointing to a dog). Parent: responds meaningfully to child's utterance, repeats what child said (e.g., “Yes, Toni, it's broken”).
    2. The utterance contains two of three phonological characteristics of the perceived target word (Moog & Geers, 1985):
      1. a consonant matches a consonant in the target word in manner and place of production (voiced and voiceless cognates accepted; e.g., [ta] for “dog”), and/or
      2. a vowel matches a vowel in the target word (e.g., [bo] for “boat”), and/or
      3. the number of syllables in the child's utterance matches the number of syllables in the target word (e.g., [wawa] for “water”).
        Example: The child reaches out hand toward a baby doll, as if requesting it and says /e/ /i/. The utterance would be accepted as a single word because at least one vowel matches a vowel in the word “baby”, and the number of syllables matches the target word.
        Additional rules for words (Robb et al., 1994): Multiple productions of single words are treated as single words (e.g., “da da da” is counted as one production for “dad”). Marginal words (e.g., “uh-oh”, “owee”, “beep-beep”) are counted as single words.

  4. Partially correct word combinations: Utterances that contain at least one word in combination with non-words or pre-words (e.g., child says: [bIg bababa]).

  5. Totally correct word combinations: Utterances that contain two or more words in which all of the components are identified as words (e.g., [mai kot]). Fillers such as “um” or “uh” do not cause a totally correct word combination to be classified as a partially correct word combinations.