Video narration as a language sampling context

Video narration is a context for sampling spontaneous expressive language in which the subject produces an on-line description of the events he or she observes on videotape. Video narration offers a means of reducing the variability among language samples from different speakers, or from the same speaker over time, because the number and complexity of events to be coded linguistically is known and constant. This increased consistency facilitates comparisons among samples, as well as enabling certain analyses requiring a transparent relationship between utterances and events. Advantages and limitations of video narration as an adjunct to conversational sampling are described, and comparisons between longitudinal video narration and conversational samples obtained from brain-injured children and their matched normal controls are presented.