Free NIH-supported teaching resources for faculty
Nan Bernstein Ratner
Free, NIH-supported “Virtual Patient/Client” Resources for University faculty and students at TalkBank (talkbank.org)
As many of us prepare for the fall semester, we’d like to remind University faculty of speech, language and fluency resources at TalkBank. These resources are freely available, and accompanied by suggestions for teaching exercises.
At FluencyBank (fluency.talkbank.org), all multi-media teaching samples under the teaching tab (both children and adults) are open access and do not require any passwords. More than two dozen adults and numerous children have contributed both spontaneous and read speech samples, interview answers and, for adults, OASES forms sufficient to provide most classes with fully rounded virtual assessment and treatment goal-setting practice. The site also offers transcription guidance tutorials and free software for automatic computation of fluency profiles. Please note that only the TEACHING with FluencyBank samples are open access; research data still requires password access.
CHILDES (childes.talkbank.org) provides thousands of downloadable language samples from both typical children and children with a wide array of developmental language disorders. Both English and dozens of other languages are represented, across a wide age range; many have accompanying audio or video. The site also offers language sample analysis transcription guidance tutorials and free software for computation of children’s expressive language profiles. These can be used for both virtual assessment and treatment planning purposes.
PhonBank (phon.talkbank.org) provides transcripts linked to audio for the study of early phonological development in over 20 languages. It includes data from both typically-development children and children with phonological disorders. The data can be analyzed using the Phon program for detailed phonological analysis.
As always, we welcome contributions to our teaching resources, as well as suggestions for instructional use of existing materials. For more information, please contact Nan Ratner at nra...@umd.edu