Bernstein-Ratner
Nan Bernstein-Ratner
Hearing and Speech Sciences
LeFrak Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA
nratner@bss1.umd.edu
Participants
The participants were nine mother–child dyads who were followed for a period of 4 to 5 months each. Each dyad has three transcripts. The mothers were all college-educated women, who were native-born Americans with white-collar husbands. The children (all girls) ranged in age from 1;1 to 1;9 at first taping. The ages of each child are posted on the very first line of each transcript file. Three of the children began the study as prelinguistic infants (Kay, Amelia, and Dale). Three began as “holophrastic” language users (Alice, Cindy, and Marie). Three began and finished as multi-word utterance producers (Lena, Gail, and Annie). These names do not correspond to those listed in either Bernstein (1982) or some subsequent articles, due to the request by CHILDES to provide pseudonyms. Children in each of the first two groups made significant linguistic progress into higher language stages during the course of the study
Procedure
Children and their mothers played for approximately 45 minutes at each session with the same selection of toys (blocks, stuffed animals, puppets, books, and so forth). Most of the sessions were followed by a parental interview. These interviews are collected in a subdirectory entitled “interview.” The purpose of the interview was to gather a sample of the mothers’ speech for comparison against the mother–child condition. In order to obtain exemplars of mother-adult words to match to the mother–child condition, the questioning sometimes wandered. In addition, to save transcription time, the mothers’ responses to the investigator’s questions are provided, but the investigator’s comments are omitted.
Recording
These transcripts were derived from reel-to-reel audiotaped interactions carried out in a sound-proof playroom at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Laboratory of Electronics during 1979 and 1980. The original inquiry regarded phonetic characteristics of maternal speech. The quality of the audio recordings of both mothers and children is extremely fine. Mothers wore lavaliere microphones with Sony™ ECM-50s and the interactions were taped on a Revox™ A77. These tapes will be made available to any researcher who requests them, with the provisos that the researcher receive some sort of authorship credit for subsequent research derived from them, and that the costs of materials and labor to duplicate the tapes be borne by the requesting researcher.

The children’s language skills were not a primary focus of any of the research carried out to date using these samples. As a result, although phonetic transcriptions of the children have been provided, they are very rough. Given the notorious difficulty of obtaining reliability in the transcription of prelinguistic and early child phonetic strings, it is recommended that any researcher interested in doing a phonological analysis of the children’s data request the original audiotapes. The children are transcribed in UNIBET, with minimal fine detail. To create uniformity, and to read as little as possible into the children’s output, most of the children are phonetically transcribed, even when their productions appear to correspond to adult forms. The majority of the children’s productions are phonetic, rather than phonemic, given the ages of the children. Some of the older children’s transcripts include regular English orthography.
Miscellaneous Notes
Amelia was a nonidentical twin. Her mother’s speech to the other twin girl was also recorded for 6 months, but has not been provided. It is available on request. A series of three tapes of a mother conversing with a girl thought to be language-delayed and eliminated from the first and subsequent studies is available without transcript. Finally, a girl having linguistic skills similar to Lena, but with a more talkative mother, was taped for a manuscript in preparation and can be provided without transcription. Copies of the dissertation (Bernstein, 1982) can be obtained upon request, as can more information about particular participants or other issues. Please feel free to contact Dr. Bernstein-Ratner if you have questions regarding these samples. 

Publications using these data should cite one or more of these articles:

Bernstein, N. (1982). Acoustic study of mothers’ speech to language-learning children: An analysis of vowel articulatory characteristics. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Boston University.
Bernstein-Ratner, N. (1984a). Patterns of vowel modification in motherese. Journal of Child Language, 11, 557–578.
Bernstein-Ratner, N. (1984b). Phonological rule usage in mother–child speech. Journal of Phonetics, 12, 245-254.
Bernstein-Ratner, N. (1985). Dissociations between vowel durations and formant frequency characteristics. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 28, 255–264.
Bernstein-Ratner, N. (1986). Durational cues which mark clause boundaries in mother child speech. Journal of Phonetics, 14, 303–309.
Bernstein-Ratner, N. (1987). The phonology of parent child speech. In K. Nelson & A. Van Kleeck (Eds.), Children’s Language: Vol. 6. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bernstein-Ratner, N., & Pye, C. (1984). Higher pitch in baby talk is not universal: Acoustic evidence from Quiche Mayan. Journal of Child Language, 11, 515–522.

Brown
Roger Brown (deceased)
Professor of Psychology and Social Relations
Harvard University

This subdirectory contains the complete transcripts from the three participants Adam, Eve, and Sarah who were studied by Roger Brown and his students between 1962 and 1966. Adam was studied from 2;3 to 4;10, Eve from 1;6 to 2;3, and Sarah from 2;3 to 5;1. Brown (1973) summarized this research and provided detailed documentation regarding data collection, transcription, and analysis.

The corpus was scanned optically from the original typed sheets and then reformatted by program and extensively checked by hand. In addition to basic CHAT coding, the child’s speech in the Adam and Eve corpora has also been coded for these five speech acts:

$RES	response
$IMIT	imitation
$EIMIT	elicited imitation
$MLR	metalinguistic reference
$IMP	imperative

Adam was the child of a minister and an elementary school teacher. His family was middle class and well educated. Though he was Black, he was not a speaker of American Black English, but of Standard American. There are 55 files in the Adam corpus and his age ranges from 2;3 to 4;10. Also included in the corpus is a file called “00lexicon.cdc” which contains some nonstandard lexical items that were used or invented by Adam. The transcriptions consistently record the fact that all three of the children tended to use reduce initial “th” to “d”. To deal with this, we have allowed for the inclusion in the lexicon of “de,” “dat,” “dose,” “dese,” and “dem.”
Adam Files
File	Age	File	Age	File	Age	File	Age	
01	2;3.4	15	2;10.2	29	3;4.18	43	4;1.15	
02	2;3.18	16	2;10.16	30	3;5.0	44	4;2.17	
03	2;4.3	17	2;10.30	31	3;5.15	45	4;3.9	
04	2;4.15	18	2;11.13	32 	3;6.9	46	4;4.0	
05	2;4.30	19	2;11.28	33	3;5.29	47	4;3.13	
06	2;5.12	20	3;0.11	34	3;7.7	48	4;5.11	
07	2;6.3	21	3;0.25	35	3;8.0	49	4;6.24	
08	2;6.17	22	3;1.9	36	3;8.14	50	4;7.0	
09	2;6.17	23	3;1.26	37	3;8.26	51	4;7.29	
10	2;7.14	24	3;2.9	38	3;9.16	52	5;2.12	
11	2;8.0	25	3;2.21	39	3;10.15	53	4;9.2	
12	2;8.16	26	3;3.4	40	3;11.0	54	4;10.2	
13	2;9.4	27	3;3.18	41	3;11.14	55	4;10.23	
14	2;9.18	28	3;4.1	42	4;0.14			

Eve was a linguistically precocious child. Unfortunately for the study, her family moved away from the Cambridge area after only 20 sessions were completed. Her speech developed very rapidly over these 9 months. In spite of the small amount of data, her record is especially rich. She began the study when she was 1;6 and left the study when she was 2;3. Included with the Eve data are two files, “00lexicon.cdc” and “00proper.cdc”. The 00lexicon.cdc outlines nonstandard lexical items and the 00proper.cdc file shows the proper nouns used by Eve. The transcripts consistently note that Eve pronounced both “have to” and “have a” as “habba”. Eve’s approximate ages in each of the 20 files are as follows:
Eve Files
File	Age	File	Age	File	Age	File	Age	
01	1;6	06	1;9	11	1;11	16	2;1	
02	1;6	07	1;9	12	1;11	17	2;2	
03	1;7	08	1;9	13	1;12	18	2;2	
04	1;7	09	1;10	14	2;0	19	2;3	
05	1;8	10	1;10	15	2;1	20	2;3	

Sarah was the child of a working class family. There are 139 files in the Sarah corpus covering the ages 2;3 to 5;1. There is also a “00lexicon.cdc” file outlining nonstandard lexical items used by Sarah. Sarah’s approximate ages for each of the 139 files are as follows:
Sarah Files
File	Age	File	Age	File	Age	File	Age	
001	2;3.5	036	2;11.2	071	3;7.30	106	4;4.25	
002	2;3.7	037	2;11.17	072	3;8.6	107	4;5.4	
003	2;3.19	038	2;11.23	073	3;8.12	108	4;5.8	
004	2;3.22	039	2;11.30	074	3;8.20	109	4;5.14	
005	2;3.26	040	3;0.18	075	3;8.27	110	4;5.22	
006	2;3.28	041	3;0.18	076	3;9.3	111	4;5.29	
007	2;4.10	042	3;0.27	077	3;9.18	112	4;6.5	
008	2;4.12	043	3;1.3	078	3;9.26	113	4;6.11	
009	2;4.17	044	3;1.10	079	3;9.26	114	4;6.17	
010	2;4.19	045	3;1.17	080	3;10.1	115	4;6.24	
011	2;4.26	046	3;1.24	081	3;10.9	116	4;7.0	
012	2;5.7	047	3;2.2	082	3;10.16	117	4;7.11	
013	2;5.15	048	3;2.10	083	3;10.30	118	4;7.17	
014	2;5.25	049	3;2.16	084	3;11.9	119	4;7.24	
015	2;5.30	050	3;2.23	085	3;11.16	120	4;8.7	
016	2;6.4	051	3;3.7	086	3;11.29	121	4;8.13	
017	2;6.13	052	3;3.7	087	4;0.5	122	4;8.20	
018	2;6.20	053	3;3.13	088	4;0.14	123	4;9.4	
019	2;6.30	054	3;3.20	089	4;0.28	124	4;9.12	
020	2;7.5	055	3;3.28	090	4;1.4	125	4;9.19	
021	2;7.12	056	3;4.1	091	4;1.11	126	4;9.26	
022	2;7.18	057	3;4.9	092	4;1.18	127	4;10.6	
023	2;7.28	058	3;4.16	093	4;1.28	128	4;10.21	
024	2;8.2	059	3;4.26	094	4;2.1	129	4;10.27	
025	2;8.25	060	3;5.1	095	4;2.9	130	4;11.4	
026	2;8.25	061	3;5.7	096	4;2.16	131	4;11.13	
027	2;9.0	062	3;5.13	097	4;2.23	132	4;11.19	
028	2;9.6	063	3;5.20	098	4;2.28	133	4;11.26	
029	2;9.14	064	3;6.6	099	4;3.7	134	5;0.2	
030	2;9.20	065	3;6.16	100	4;3.13	135	5;0.10	
031	2;9.29	066	3;6.23	101	4;3.19	136	5;0.16	
032	2;10.5	067	3;6.30	102	4;3.26	137	5;0.25	
033	2;10.11	68	3;7.9	103	4;4.1	138	5;0.30	
034	2;10.20	69	3;7.16	104	4;4.11	139	5;1.6	
035	2;10.24	70	3;7.23	105	4;4.18			

Publications using these data should cite:

Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Feldman*
Andrea Feldman
University Writing Program, Box 359
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO  80309-0359
feldman@stripe.colorado.edu; 
telephone: (303) 492-4396

The data in this study come from a longitudinal study of Andrea Feldman’s first child, code-named Steven, from age 0;5 to 2;9. She began video and audio-taping Steven once a month from 0;5 to 1;2, after which she taped him approximately three hours per week.  Phonetic transcriptions of Steven's speech are included only on words which differ noticeably from the adult standard; all other words are written on the main tier in standard English. At the time of taping, the mother was a linguistics doctoral student and the father was a senior instructor in Writing at the University of Colorado.
	
Steven was tested cognitively at two and three years old by his pediatrician.  On the Verbal Language Development Exam he scored 3.88 (approximate developmental age) at two years old and 5.74 at three years old.  On the Denver Articulation Screening Exam, he scored in the 98th percentile at age three; for purposes of comparison with other children, one would classify him as a rapid language learner.

The data were collected using a Sony FE camcorder along with a Marantz tape recorder and a Tecnica remote microphone. A heavy duty Bogen 3211 tripod was also used at times.  Steven was always taped in our own home, with one or both parents present.  Usually, one parent operated the video camera while the other interacted with the child.  'Laura', Steven's younger sister, was born when he was 1;11.13; she is present and sometimes making sounds (but not yet speaking) on some of these tapes.

Ten one-hour tapes between the ages of 1;2.1 and 1;4.16, and fourteen between the ages of 1;11 and 2;3.26 were transcribed. Steven's Lexicon (note: parents were relaxed about using some of STV's child forms to him, and sometimes with each other)

[bababa]		 'food'  4/8/93 age  0;8.21 - 1;0.10
voiceless  [b] 	'food' 4/8/93
[ma][mama]	'mama' 4/23/93
[mUm] 		'mama' 5/22/93
[dada]		 'dad' 5/22/93
[ha]		 'hi' 5/17/93
[baba] 		'bye' 5/18/93
[gobaba]		 'goin' bye bye' 6/8/93
[boida] [goida]	 'good night' 6/9/93
[nana]		 'no' 6/13/93
[nana]		 'banana' 7/1/93
[mae]		 'good' 7/3/93
[*b] 		'splashy' 7/26/93
[kaka] 		'quack quack' (name for duck) 7/28/93
[Uk]		 'yucky' 7/28/93
a			other
adiadi		slide
adior		from Spanish, adios
aish, ai, aiX	orange
ba			red
badada		body lotion
bae or baek	black
bagi		bagel, bread
bibi		slipper
Bikiki		King Soopers
bu			blue
budleyley		doll
byebye		byebye or telephone
byebye bathie	bath
byegoodbye	telephone
dada		daddy
didi		train, deer
Ebi Fine Park	Eben Fine Park
gi			green
giya		crayons
higher higher	building blocks
kaboomps		fall down, from kaboom
kaka		car
mama		milk, mother
magigaga		milk and cookies
mangimangi	fire engine
Mimi		Sabrina, or Brina, the family cat
ming		swing
Minimart		Toys R Us
Nada		Lamb Chop
nadi		lambie
nola		granola
nula		vanilla
opa			open
Tadi		STV (name for himself)
Tadu		Thomas the Tank Engine
tuba		table
Yaya		Lara (name for baby sister)

References: Feldman 1998, Menn & Feldman (to appear 2001 in the Journal of Child Language),  Feldman (in press), and other work in progress.
talinguistic and repair data. Cognition, 23, 95–147.

Warren-Leubecker
Amye Warren-Leubecker
Department of Psychology
University of Tennessee
615 McCallie Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37403

This subdirectory contains data from 20 children interacting either with their mothers or their fathers. The families are White and middle-class, but nonprofessionals. One group of children was aged 1;6 to 3;1 and the other group was aged 4;6 to 6;2. Ten of the children were in the “older” group, (Mean age of 64.7 months, SD = 8.25, range from 4;6 to 6;2) and ten are in a “younger” group (Mean age of 26.5 months, SD = 5.99, range from 1;6 to 3;1). Half of the children in each age group were boys and half were girls. Each child spoke to his or her mother and father in successive dyadic, separate sessions. The order in which they spoke to mother or father was randomized. The sessions took place in the child’s home, normally in a living room or den area, with the child’s own toys or books present to facilitate conversation. The experimenter was either not present in the room (set up the tape recorder and left it behind) or was in an isolated part of the room where the child could not easily see her. Parents were instructed to play with or talk to their children as naturally as possible. They were instructed to bring out the child in conversation, and the only limitation was that neither child or parent was to actually read to the other.
The parents were told that the experimenter was interested in how language develops, and was tape recording children of various ages for a project. Actually, the purpose of the project was to examine the fundamental voice frequencies used by mothers versus fathers when speaking to children, and the parents were subsequently informed that the experimenter was less interested in the child’s speech than in their own. A Revox reel-to-reel recorder and omnidirectional microphone were used and all home background noise was eliminated. Each session with mother or father lasted at least 15 minutes, possibly up to half an hour. Thus, each child conversed for at least half an hour. The recordings were transcribed verbatim by the experimenter using the common English alphabet. Phonetic approximations were used for any uninterpretable speech segments, and for common “slang” phrases (e.g., “gonna,” “wanna,”“doin,” and “uh-huh”). Moreover, care was taken to approximate dialectical variation in pronunciation. All of the parents lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, but did not have “Southern” accents. None of the parents or children had any obvious speech disfluencies, and none of the children were language delayed. The transcripts were compared for mother-directed speech.

Publications using these data should cite:
Warren-Leubecker, A. (1982). Sex differences in speech to children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Georgia Institute of Technology.
Warren-Leubecker, A., & Bohannon, J. N. (1984). Intonation patterns in child-directed speech: Mother-father speech. Child Development, 55, 1379–1385.
	“Home” references are almost exclusively a subset of past references, but refer specifically to past events, experiences, and states of affairs in the child’s home and family