• Wear headphones when clipping audios (e.g. Bluetooth headphones, wired headphones)

• Start clipping exactly when the participant begins speaking.

• Stop immediately after the participant finishes.

• Do not include extra silence before or after, as this affects acoustic measures (e.g., words per minute, pause duration).

  1. Examples of comments to omit at beginning and end:

     1. this is hard./esto es difícil/això es dificil

     2. that's all I remember./esto es todo lo que recuerdo/això es tot el que recordo

     3. Done./hecho/fet

     4. that’s all, all done/ ya esta/ja esta

If clinician speech appears in the sample:

1. Identify Clinician Speech

   • Listen carefully for the section where the clinician begins speaking.

2. Clip Out Clinician Section

   • Start clipping at the moment the clinician begins speaking.

   • Stop clipping immediately when the clinician finishes speaking.

   • Remove this section from the participant’s speech sample.

3. Check for Smoothness

   • Play back the edited file to ensure the cut flows naturally, without long silences or abrupt cuts.

1. Clip out the clinician’s speech as much as possible.

2. If the participant and clinician speak simultaneously, keep that portion in the sample.

3. Record this occurrence in the corresponding row of the sample in Smartsheets

1. If background noise occurs when participant is speaking, clip out as much as possible without affecting participant’s speech

2. For each audio sample, fill out the field “TaskName_Background noise.” Use the following definitions:
   Definitions

• Compression: Distortion caused by recording or transmission issues (e.g., rushed/zoomed audio, choppiness, or Wi-Fi glitches).

• Buzzing: A steady, continuous background hum or buzz throughout the sample. (e.g., fan noise)

• Background noise: Environmental sounds unrelated to the task (e.g., dog barking, people talking, door slamming, microphone tap).

  • NOTE: If a patient’s breathing affects their intelligibility, this would also be considered as background noise

  • Clip it out if possible! Previously clippers where instructed to clip it out when possible

    • If you notice that there is a background noise please describe it as a comment in the participant row stating in which task it's found example: “Picnic Scene Task-There is clinician speech in the beginning of the sample before the patient begins to speak, and a squeaking noise while the patient is speaking.”

• Clipping should start when the participant speaks and ends when the participant is done producing the script

• The clinician typically prompts the participant to produce each script by providing a prompt such as:

  • Tell me about “your favorite vacation” [topic in quotes varies]

  • Tell me about it “script topic”

• If the topic/title of the script is repeated by the participant, do not include that in the audio file

  • example

    • Clinician: “Cuéntame sobre “El Barca””

    • Participant: “El Barca…A me gusta el Barca…”

      • You would clip out the crossed out section where the participant essentially is repeating the clinician before they start producing the script

• Sometimes, the participant really struggles when producing their script or they produce the WRONG script in response to a related topic. For example, producing a script about their grandkids when asked to speak about their children. Typically, the clinician will RESTART the prompting and allow the participant to start again.

  • If the second production is clearly a better/more accurate/complete production, go with the second production

  • Clippers sometimes do not know which one to include. It is recommended you ask the study clinician or Dr. Grasso if you are unsure.

• Make sure that the topic names/titles are consistent, they should match the Multiple Baseline Sheets, Set matching sheets and VISTA Smartsheets exactly. As a Clipper, you are likely to be referencing the VISTA Smartsheets which already have the topic titles entered.

  • Link to VISTA Clipping Smartsheets:

    • Spanish VISTA Clipping + Whisper Report https://app.smartsheet.com/reports/qxvXFxCc872f7P8McGpX3JJqvXpcGP5Mh8cJGhc1?view=grid

    • Catalan VISTA Clipping + Whisper Report https://app.smartsheet.com/reports/jgRFp589QCfGwPp4PRpVCQgqF64xrJrGRwmQR4v1?view=grid

    • Priority Spanish VISTA Report (needed before August 2026) https://app.smartsheet.com/reports/3JF68cF5FxJW7JcQpRWGxRjjqWjwJHvMV48F56f1?view=grid

    • Priority Catalan VISTA Report (needed before August 2026) https://app.smartsheet.com/reports/pGhpmWcGR6R3PfqV58MPc45G482JmMVPM4cwhxJ1?view=grid

• No accent marks

  • ex. “_Barça_”, should be “_Barca_”

• All script names should be in Spanish, even if the session is in Catalan

• Capitalize first letters of each word of the script titles

  • ex. “_Jardines_”, “_ArreglarLaCasa_”

• Do not use any other punctuation symbols (dashes, commas)

  • ex. “_COVID-19_”, should be “_Covid19_”

• These details are crucial because our analyses pipeline will consider the scripts to be different from one another if they vary in any way, including things like a random space being included