Logistics: Your LENA Recording Cycle
The recording cycle begins with preparing recording day materials, and ends when the resulting LENA data are available for their intended use, whether that is parent feedback or further analysis.
This article highlights the logistics of the LENA recording cycle for standard, full-day recordings in a child's natural environment. Your needs may differ slightly if you are using LENA differently.
1. Get Ready.
For a standard full-day recording in a child's natural environment, this means preparing a recording day packet including the following:
- clean LENA clothing (possibly including a spare)
- a fully charged DLP
- recording instructions
- other materials relevant to your project, such as daily activity logs or targeted intervention materials
Factors to consider include your laundering schedule, charging time, packet preparation time, time to go over instructions for first-time recordings, and your method for getting the recording day packet to the family.
2. Record.
Once recording day arrives, the time you've spent preparing and teaching the family how to use the DLP will pay off.
3. Return.
3.1. Transport
Decide how will you get the full DLP back for transfer. For example, you may:
- pick it up from the family's home
- provide an envelope and postage
- have the family bring it to their next clinic visit
If you are using the LENA Reports as feedback for your families, consider ways to optimize the elapsed time between the recording and the feedback.
3.2. Transfer
When the DLP comes back for transfer, plan for some hands-on time to:
- launch the software
- physically connect the DLP to the computer
- possibly enter a new child into the LENA software, if that wasn't done before recording day
- assign the recording to the proper child
- wait 2-3 minutes for transfer to complete
- set up the DLP to charge for the next user
3.3. Process
Processing takes 2-4 hours per recording, depending on the length and complexity of the audio, and your computer's capacity.
If you are running an earlier version of LENA Pro, and you transfer multiple recordings, they will process sequentially, in the order of transfer. So for example, 3 transferred files will take 6-12 hours to process.
With LENA Pro version 3.4 (or later), the software will simultaneously process files up to the number of logical cores on your computer. (The default setting is that number minus 1 to leave some system resources available for other needs.) For example, if you have a quad-core processor, the same 3 files from the previous example will all process together in 2-3 hours, leaving the 4th core open for other computing needs. If you were to upload more than 3 files, the extras would queue for processing once resources become available.
4. Review.
As soon as a file has processed you can view the related reports, share feedback with the family, or export data for additional analysis - even if other files are still queued for processing.
Now you're ready to start all over again!
Do you have tips or tricks that keep your recording cycles running smoothly? Share them with the LENA Community in our User Forum.