Can the recorder be worn by an adult?
Sure!
The LENA System was designed for use with infants and young children, but our creative users have come up with many unexpected applications for the high fidelity recordings and powerful software, including having adults wear the recorder.
Below are a few things to consider when deciding whether putting the DLP on an adult is the right choice for you.
Know the limits.
No "Key Adult" information.
When a recorder is worn by an adult, you will not get individual data on that "key adult" -- unless you have a very controlled environment with no other same-gender speakers.
Why is this?
LENA's models and algorithms lump all live, nearby human speech segments from adult males into one category, MAN, and all those from adult females into another category, FAN. This is true regardless of who is wearing the recorder, because speaker segment labeling relies heavily on the fundamental frequency of the voice. There is no "key adult" speaker category.
LENA Adult Word Report shows all adults combined.
All words spoken by adult males and adult females are combined in the Adult Word Report in the LENA reports.
You'll need to export files and use ADEX to pull apart adult male and adult female speech. See the ADEX training webinar for more information.
No "Key Child" information.
Unless a child is in constant, very close proximity to the adult wearing the device, there is no reliable way to get individual "key child" information when the device is worn by an adult.
We would expect that most usable child utterances would be labeled as CXN - Other Child - meaning they will not be included in the Child Vocalization report.
If your work involves gathering both adult and key child speech information -- for example, to investigate how much adult speech was meant for the child but was out of range, or how much is directed toward each child in a pair of siblings -- consider putting a recorder on each subject.
We know of a few projects applying similar strategies and looking at the resulting data in a time-aligned format.
Dress for success.
LENA clothing, with its pocket designed and tested not to interfere with the recording, does not come in adult sizes.
Some users have reported success with the following strategies:
- Cut the pocket off a piece of LENA clothing and sew or pin it high on the chest of an adult-sized shirt or even an apron, depending on the context in which the recorder will be worn
- Place the recorder in a pouch that clips to the adult's own shirt, such as the Timbuk2 ID & Money Clip
- Place the recorder in a pouch with a strap, such as the Nathan Shadow Pak, and fasten the strap diagonally across the body so that the device is high on the chest
Note: We recommend against using hook and loop fasteners, such as Velcro, in your creative clothing design. Early in the development of LENA we discovered that using this kind of fastener actually shed tiny fibers that wrecked the microphones!