PURPOSE Transcription of conjoined independent clauses within language samples varies across professionals. Some transcribe these clauses as two separate utterances, whereas others conjoin them within a single utterance. As an inquiry into equitable practice, we examined rates of conjoined independent clauses produced by children and the impact of separating these clauses within utterances on measures of mean length of utterance (MLU) by a child's English dialect, clinical status, and age. METHOD The data were archival and included 246 language samples from children classified by their dialect (African American English or Southern White English) and clinical status (developmental language disorder [DLD] or typically developing [TD]), with those in the TD group further classified by their age (4 years [TD4] or 6 years [TD6]). RESULTS Rates of conjoined independent clauses and the impact of these clauses on MLU varied by clinical status (DLD < TD) and age (TD4 < TD6), but not by dialect. Correlations between the rate of conjoined clauses, MLU, and language test scores were also similar across the two dialects. CONCLUSIONS Transcription decisions regarding conjoined independent clauses within language samples lead to equitable measurement outcomes across dialects of English. Nevertheless, transcribing conjoined independent clauses as two separate utterances reduces one's ability to detect syntactic differences between children with and without DLD and document syntactic growth as children age. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25822675.

中文翻译：

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联合独立子句的转录决策在方言之间是公平的，但会影响测量结果。


目的 语言样本中连体独立子句的转录因专业人员而异。有些人将这些子句转录为两个单独的话语，而另一些人将它们连接在一个话语中。作为对公平实践的调查，我们研究了儿童产生的连体独立子句的比率，以及在话语中分离这些子句对儿童英语方言、临床状况和年龄的平均话语长度 (MLU) 测量的影响。方法 数据为存档数据，包括 246 个儿童语言样本，按其方言（非洲美式英语或南方白英语）和临床状态（发展性语言障碍 [DLD] 或典型发展性 [TD]）进行分类，TD 组的儿童进一步按年龄分类（4 岁 [TD4] 或 6 岁 [TD6]）。结果 连体独立子句的比率以及这些子句对 MLU 的影响因临床状态 (DLD < TD) 和年龄 (TD4 < TD6) 而异，但不因方言而异。两种方言的连体子句比率、MLU 和语言测试分数之间的相关性也相似。结论 关于语言样本中的联合独立子句的转录决策导致跨英语方言的公平测量结果。然而，将连接的独立子句转录为两个单独的话语会降低人们检测患有和未患有 DLD 的儿童之间的句法差异以及随着儿童年龄的增长记录句法增长的能力。补充材料 https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25822675。