Morphosyntactic structures in the spoken language of older children and adolescents

Abstract

This study examined the effects of age and gender on 8-, 11-, 14-, and 17-year-old children and adolescents' uses of the eight morphosyntactic features included in the Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) procedure, the total DSS score, and the DSS sentence point score. No gender-related differences or interactions between gender and age were identified. However, age had a significant effect for eight of the 10 DSS measures. These eight measures were: indefinite pronouns/noun modifiers, personal pronouns, main verbs, negatives, conjunctions, interrogative reversals, wh- questions, and the total DSS score. For these eight, at least one of the three older groups, most often the 11-year-old group, received higher scores than the 8-year-olds. The study also explored whether frequency of use of the eight morphosyntactic features and/or the developmental complexity of the features that were used contributed to the identified age-related differences in morphosyntactic use. For the most part, frequency of use was the primary factor accounting for differences. A developmental pattern characterized by spurts and regressions was commonly observed across the age groups. Findings are related to other research on later language development. The need for future research to address issues related to language sampling and analysis methods specifically appropriate for older children and adolescents is highlighted.