Readability of online sources of information regarding epilepsy surgery and its impact on decision-making processes.

Introduction: People with epilepsy can have cognitive deficits, including difficulty with reading tasks. This can potentially impact on how written information is understood. Websites increasingly provide information about different medical interventions including epilepsy surgery.

Transcribing speech: practicalities, philosophies and prophesies.

This article outlines the main practical and philosophical developments which have contributed to current approaches to phonetic transcription. Particular contributions from scholars in the field are highlighted as seminal in shaping transcription work. Consideration is also given to the ways in which insights from clinical transcription impact upon the analysis of non-clinical data.

The contribution of clinical phonetics to the investigation of oracy problems in the classroom.

This paper explains how insights from clinical linguistics can be applied to the investigation of oracy problems in the classroom. While the importance of oracy skills at school and beyond is undisputed, there is often a lack of conveniently manageable frameworks for assessing these skills. It is suggested here that methods from phonetics and phonology can be easily and profitably adopted into routine language profiling in schools and that they offer one means of uncovering potential speech difficulties in children.

Transcribing disordered speech: the segmental and prosodic layers.

In this article we explore the speech layers of a transcription toolkit. We begin by discussing issues of transcription theory and practice, including the difference between broad and narrow phonetic transcription and the importance of narrow transcription with disordered speech, and the measurement of transcriber reliability. We also look at extending symbol sets and using instrumental approaches to deal with atypical speech production.