ELAN Coding

Developed by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, ELAN (EUDICO Linguistic Annotator) allows users to create and modify annotations for audio and video data.  ELAN is a tool that makes it possible to annotate, document, and analyze communication including language, sign language, and gesture. As an alternative to other transcription and coding software, ELAN allows users to code language samples in real-time.  Real-time coding is beneficial for the user because it is less time-consuming than traditional methods of transcribing and coding. Additionally, naive coders find ELAN to be more user friendly than other transcription platforms. These benefits allow for a quick analysis of a language sample. Additionally, our we have found that real-time coding is as accurate as traditional transcription in capturing frequency of participant’s speech utterances and conversational turns.

At the Center for Autism Research Excellence, ELAN is used to derive three primary outcome measures from the language samples collected. However, ELAN does offer additional, more elaborate, transcription and coding if there are other variables you wish to measure.

Outcome Measures

•     Frequency of utterance (number of utterances/unit time)
•     Number of conversational turns

For instructional information about ELAN, see our guide: ELAN Annotator Guide