The Stepping Stones Group Blog

Unlocking Language Data: ScriptPrep and ScriptSense for SLPs & Educators

Written by Ashley Ippolito | Fri, Sep 19, 2025

Language analysis is one of the most powerful ways speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and researchers can understand a child’s strengths and challenges, but it often comes with roadblocks: messy transcripts, time-consuming formatting, and limited analysis tools.

 

That is where ScriptToolKit comes in (Ippolito, 2025). Designed for busy clinicians and researchers, ScriptToolKit offers practical, evidence-based tools that make transcript preparation and analysis easier, faster, and more consistent. In this post, I will introduce ScriptToolKit and walk you through two of its flagship tools: ScriptPrep and ScriptSense (Ippolito, 2025). Together, they take you from raw transcript to meaningful insights in just a few clicks.


What is ScriptToolKit, and why does it matter?
ScriptToolKit is a growing collection of digital tools designed to make language analysis more accessible for professionals in school-based and research settings. Traditional approaches require extensive manual work and strict formatting rules, which can discourage consistent use. By automating the “busywork” of transcript preparation and providing advanced, research-backed analysis, ScriptToolKit helps SLPs and educators focus on what matters most: supporting students. Whether you are preparing a language sample for an IEP or running a study on literacy development, ScriptToolKit ensures your process is faster, cleaner, and more reliable.


Real Examples of ScriptPrep and ScriptSense

  • ScriptPrep instantly cleans and standardizes transcripts, removing errors and formatting conventions required by other platforms. For example, if you paste in a transcript with SALT conventions, ScriptPrep automatically transforms it into a clean, consistent, and fully research-ready format.
  • ScriptSense takes that transcript and runs in-depth analysis, offering metrics such as word counts, mean length of utterance, morphological complexity, and other advanced linguistic measures. What makes ScriptSense unique is its balance of detail and accessibility. Clinicians can quickly generate progress-monitoring data such as percent correct morphemes or sentence length to share with families and IEP teams, while researchers can dig deeper into higher-level metrics like lexical diversity, readability, or affix use across samples. All results are exportable to formats like Excel or SPSS, making it easy to track growth over time or compare across groups. ScriptSense was built to reduce the gap between research and practice, giving professionals the ability to access publication-quality analyses without hours of manual coding.


Tips and Reminders 
Start with ScriptPrep if you are working with raw transcripts. It ensures everything is compatible before analysis. Then, use ScriptSense to dig deeper into your data. Even if you only need simple counts, ScriptSense provides clear explanations and export-ready data for your workflow.


Closing
Language analysis does not have to be overwhelming. With ScriptToolKit, SLPs and researchers can move from transcripts to insights quickly and confidently. By combining ScriptPrep and ScriptSense, you will save time, reduce errors, and unlock a clearer picture of student language. 

Unlock ScriptToolKit here.

 

Author: Victoria Guggenbiller, OTR/L