Databases in Communication Disorders

Computerized databases for the study of communication disorders have grown over the past several decades. Many of these databases involve the collection of large amounts of spoken or written language accessed over the Internet. Conditions for access to these collections vary widely. The TalkBank System is currently the world’s largest repository of shared databases for spoken language and is freely open to researchers, educators, and clinicians. Its many component banks provide language corpora and resources for research and education in fields such as communication sciences and disorders, linguistics, psychology, education, and computer science. These databases include language samples of children and adults of all ages, in English and many other languages, and with and without clinical impairments.

Each of the TalkBank language banks has a separate ...