Syntactic Maturity Research Articles

Effects of Hand‐Drawn and Computer‐Generated Concept Mapping on the Expository Writing of Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two forms of concept mapping, hand‐drawn and computer‐generated, on the descriptive essay writing of middle‐level students with learning disabilities. Twelve eighth‐grade students composed descriptive essays under three conditions: no‐map support, hand‐map support, and computer‐map support. The essays were compared on four measures: number of words, syntactic maturity, number of T‐units, and holistic writing scores. Writing attitude was also examined. Results showed that student descriptive essays produced in the hand‐ and computer‐mapping conditions demonstrated significant increases above baseline writing samples on number of words, number of T‐units, and holistic writing scores. Carry‐over effects were observed in the no‐mapping condition and provide an indication that students may have acquired writing skills that generalized into their essay writing when not using maps. Results showed that students’ attitudes toward writing were significantly more positive in the computer‐mapping condition when compared to no‐mapping and hand‐mapping conditions.

Linguistic performance in children who develop schizophrenia in adult life. Evidence for normal syntactic ability.

Less syntactically complex speech in patients with schizophrenia has been thought to represent a premorbid dysfunction, of possible prognostic value and indicative of a neurodevelopmental origin for schizophrenia. Narratives written at age 11 by children who then developed psychiatric disorders in adult life (using PSE CATEGO diagnoses), especially schizophrenia, were compared with matched controls on syntactic complexity, syntactic maturity, grammatical deviance and spelling ability. Children who later developed either schizophrenia, affective psychosis or a neurotic type of disorder in adulthood did not differ from normal controls on any of the measures of syntactic production, grammatical errors or spelling. It is probable that previous reports of reduced syntactic complexity in schizophrenic speech are a consequence of being in a psychotic state and do not represent a premorbid deficit.

Assessing Oral Proficiency: A Comparison of Holistic and Objective Measures

This study examines the relationship between holistic judgments of oral proficiency and objective measures of syntactic maturity in the Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) of 107 students of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Tianjin, China. The analysis compares a holistic rating of proficiency level (Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior) with objective measures (Mean T‐Unit Length, Mean Error‐Free T‐Unit Length, and Percent of Error‐Free T‐Units) for three separate interview tasks (Describing/Narrating, Role Playing, and Asking Questions). Results of the repeated measures Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs) indicate significant main effects for proficiency level and interview task.

Oral and Written Compositions of Students with and without Learning Disabilities

The study compared seventh- and eighth-grade students with and without learning disabilities on two story production tasks -dictation and handwriting. The dependent measures were fluency (total numbers of words), time (total time of composing), rate (fluency divided by time), and thematic maturity (e.g., relevance to picture, title, dialogue). Handwritten compositions were scored further with the syntactic maturity, contextual vocabulary, contextual spelling, and contextual style subtests of the TOWL-2. Results indicated that the handwritten compositions of students with learning disabilities were technically (i.e., syntax, spelling, style, word length) inferior to normal achievers' compositions. Whereas the groups composed similarly on the oral task, thematic maturity scores on the written task increased for normal achievers and decreased for students with learning disabilities. Reading ability accounted for more variance in thematic maturity scores on the hand-written task (26%) than it did on the oral task (9%). It appears that learning-disabled students display weaknesses in various linguistic and technical requirements of writing and that oral composing may offer advantages to these students.

The Language of Children with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus

Children with hydrocephalus are thought to exhibit deficiencies in their linguistic performance, including the production of numerous off-topic utterances and semantically immature responses to linguistically posed problems (e.g., questions, word definitions). The hydrocephalic children included in many previous studies, however, have been mentally retarded. We sought to determine whether these language problems also characterized intellectually average children with hydrocephalus. A second purpose was to evaluate the hypothesis that the language problems of hydrocephalic children occur predominantly on tasks with high cognitive or linguistic demands. A third purpose was to reexamine the claim that despite their semantic-pragmatic deficiencies, the syntax of hydrocephalic children is age appropriate. Our hydrocephalic subjects dealt with the semantic-pragmatic requirements of linguistically posed problems in an age-appropriate manner, and although their performance on these problems declined as task demands increased, the decline was no more than that seen for nondisabled age-matches. The hydrocephalic children did not differ significantly from nondisabled age-matches on measures of productive syntactic maturity.

The Writing of Anglo and Hispanic Elementary School Students in Bilingual, Submersion, and Regular Programs

The purpose of this descriptive cross-sectional study was to describe and rate the writing of Hispanic students in a bilingual program and to compare their writing with that of Hispanic students in a submersion program and with native English speakers in a regular program. Five dependent variables were investigated: rhetorical effectiveness, overall quality of writing, productivity, syntactic maturity, and error frequency. Analyses of variance for both grade and program revealed that the sixth graders had significantly higher scores than did the fourth graders on all of the dependent variables except for error frequency. The students in the regular program had significantly higher scores on rhetorical effectiveness and overall quality of writing than did the submersion program students and the bilingual program students; they also made significantly fewer errors than did the bilingual program students. The bilingual program students had significantly higher scores on syntactic maturity and productivity than did the submersion program students. Results suggest that students who learn to write in their L1 before learning to write in their L2 will write just as effectively in their L2 as those students who learn to write only in their L2.

A Computer Analysis of Written Language Variables and a Comparison of Compositions Written by University Students with and without Learning Disabilities

The utility of computerized analysis of variables cited as predictors of success in written expression was examined. The analysis of compositions written by 423 university students revealed a three-factor structure on 17 variables associated with written expression. A comparison of compositions written by university students with and without learning disabilities was conducted on the three factors identified as vocabulary/fluency, syntactic maturity, and vocabulary/diversity. Students with learning disabilities differed significantly on the factors labeled vocabulary/fluency and syntactic maturity. Students with learning disabilities were not as fluent in word production and in the number of different words used in their compositions as their non-learning-disabled peers. They did, however, produce longer sentences and T-units. The findings of this study suggest that emphasis on the postsecondary level needs to focus on expanding the use of written vocabulary skills, and that the T-unit may not be the best determiner of syntactic complexity at the adult level.

A Comparative Study of the Writing Abilities of English-Speaking Grade 8 Students in French-Speaking Schools

This paper compares writing in two modes, narrative and argumentative, by Englishspeaking grade 8 students educated in French-speaking schools with that done by a group of similar children in a regular English program. The students' papers are compared for overall quality as measured by holistic scoring, for syntactic maturity as measured by T-unit analysis, and for surface feature control as measured by frequence of selected errors. In addition, the scores for syntactic maturity are compared to those presented in major studies of this aspect of writing development. Fifty writing variables do not differ significantly at the .05 level. The study strongly supports the view that education in a second language does not impair native-language

Reducing Composition Errors: An Experiment

and over again, despite the fact that they have studied certain rules of grammar.1 Fortunately or unfortunately, the problem of recurring errors is not peculiar to the teaching of German. question remains, therefore, what measures teacher and student can take to ameliorate the situation. How can students be brought to show an appreciable decline in errors from one essay to the next, or at least from course beginning to course end? Numerous suggestions have been advanced by foreign language methodologists, educational psychologists, and applied linguists as to how writing skills might best be developed. While many seem worthy of implementation, few offer data to support their claims of efficacy. For example, in Cooper's excellent article on the effects of sentence-combining techniques, he admits that no data were available to indicate whether positive correlations existed between the successful hastened development of syntactic maturity and grammatical accuracy (i.e., correctness of expression, excluding lexical errors).2 What suggestions have professionals in the field advanced to develop writing skills so that student errors decrease as their writing skill matures? A perusal of the professional literature leads to the conclusion that the following represent components of an effective strategy for the development of writing skills-at least for most modern foreign languages taught in this country. Comprehensive Error Correction. While selective correction of errors is certainly defensible in the development of speaking skills, the same cannot be said where writing skills are concerned. Unless all errors are identified, the faulty linguistic structures, rather than the correct ones, may become ingrained in the student's interlanguage system. Thompson's pragmatic position on error correction is difficult to rebut: The student does not improve his skill if his work is not corrected.3

The Resource Paper, Again

In a recent session of our workshop to aid English teachers in teaching writing as a process, one participant asked, Where does writing a research paper fit in? fact we had to tell her, usually doesn't, which set her off on the common argument from secondary teachers. We have to teach the research paper. It's expected. It's in the curriculum. Our students will need this when they go to college. How can you teach writing without teaching them to do a research paper? Another colleague spoke proudly. I always have my seventh grade students do research papers. It makes them feel the importance of being in junior high school-advanced, you know, grown up. Silently we wondered what kind of writing was in these documented reports required of students of all ages who had not, as yet, learned to translate their thoughts into good paragraphs. What could they possibly do with the ideas of scholarly authorities when they couldn't organize and record simple ideas of their own. Did any of the teachers who required research papers do any teaching based on real writing? And even as we questioned, we knew the answer was probably no, for teaching the research paper seldom has any connection with teaching writing. The students, as usual, are given a detailed assignment, a date when the paper is due, and are left to produce it on their own. It isn't that doing research papers is unimportant. Naturally, some students need and even profit from the experience of putting together such a paper. But we had to tell our workshop participants that doing them will not help students learn to write better unless the emphasis is put on composing and this is seldom the case. Few students compose in the body of a research paper. Although it is possible to read the references thoroughly, digest ideas on the chosen subject, select ones which are most appropriate and pertinent, draw some conclusions, and transcribe the newly-acquired thoughts on paper in their own words, few secondary students have the writing skills and the syntactic maturity to do this. Even more significant, teachers who regularly assign research papers do not, as a rule, demand that the body of a research paper be the student's composition, and unless it is, this is not writing. Sometimes it's plagiarism, and most of the time it's phrasing, students lifting ideas from their reading and restating them by substituting words or phrases or changing word or idea order. In neither case are students composing, that is creating a text. When we think about producing a research paper, the writing is only part of the procedure. The rest is learning and practicing library skills, reading, learning correct forms for recording quotations or borrowed information, learning the formal acceptable methods for recording footnotes and the bibliography, and the cosmetic mechanics for margins, sectioning, and indentions used in a manuscript. These are research paper skills, not writing skills, and they are the elements upon which most teachers focus when they evaluate the students' papers. Most research-paper skills can, and usually have to, be rechecked for format every time the students (and most professionals) tackle a new reporting task based upon the use of source material. References are always available. Good instruction in how to write well is not.

Reading Comprehension as Predictor of Growth in Syntactic Maturity and Writing Quality in the First Two and One-Half Years of Undergraduate Study

A previous study at Miami University indicated that sentence-combining practice in the freshman English class for a semester ( N = 290) results in improvement in syntactic maturity and writing effectiveness but not in reading comprehension. The present reanalysis of the same data investigated the role of reading comprehension (measured by the Sequential Test of Educational Progress) as a predictor of growth in writing skills (measured by syntactic and qualitative criteria). The results showed no consistent multivariate relationships between reading and writing.

The Reading Road to Writing

AbstractThis study reports a 24-week experiment testing the effects of a program in language development, including both reading while listening and lessons in syntactic manipulation, on students’ levels of syntactic maturity and reading achievement. Subjects were ninth grade disabled readers; four classes were divided into three experimental groups and one control group. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze results. None of the groups differed on any reading measure. Among the syntax measures, however, significant differences in favor of some or all experimental groups were found. Thus, it appears that the experimental treatments increased students’ syntactic maturity.

Reducing Composition Errors: An Experiment

and over again, despite the fact that they have studied certain rules of grammar.1 Fortunately or unfortunately, the problem of recurring errors is not peculiar to the teaching of German. question remains, therefore, what measures teacher and student can take to ameliorate the situation. How can students be brought to show an appreciable decline in errors from one essay to the next, or at least from course beginning to course end? Numerous suggestions have been advanced by foreign language methodologists, educational psychologists, and applied linguists as to how writing skills might best be developed. While many seem worthy of implementation, few offer data to support their claims of efficacy. For example, in Cooper's excellent article on the effects of sentence-combining techniques, he admits that no data were available to indicate whether positive correlations existed between the successful hastened development of syntactic maturity and grammatical accuracy (i.e., correctness of expression, excluding lexical errors).2 What suggestions have professionals in the field advanced to develop writing skills so that student errors decrease as their writing skill matures? A perusal of the professional literature leads to the conclusion that the following represent components of an effective strategy for the development of writing skills-at least for most modern foreign languages taught in this country. Comprehensive Error Correction. While selective correction of errors is certainly defensible in the development of speaking skills, the same cannot be said where writing skills are concerned. Unless all errors are identified, the faulty linguistic structures, rather than the correct ones, may become ingrained in the student's interlanguage system. Thompson's pragmatic position on error correction is difficult to rebut: The student does not improve his skill if his work is not corrected.3

Performance of Learning Disabled and Low Achieving Secondary Students on Formal Features of a Paragraph-Writing Task

An experimental paragraph-writing task was administered to 26 learning disabled and 26 low achieving students in grades 7 through 10. Writing samples were analyzed for syntactic maturity, productivity and word selection; for conventions such as tense and number markers and number agreement; and for spelling, punctuation and capitalization. Only spelling performance proved significantly different in favor of low achievers. Other formal features previously found to distinguish underachieving learning disabled students from achieving peers failed to discriminate learning disabled students from non-learning disabled students with average intelligence and low achievement.

Syntactic Maturity, Mechanics, and Vocabulary as Predictors of Quality Ratings

Syntactic Maturity, Mechanics, and Vocabulary as Predictors of Quality Ratings

Names in Search of a Concept: Maturity, Fluency, Complexity, and Growth in Written Syntax

One offshoot of the recent college sentence-combining experiments has been the renewal of the debate over what constitutes mature style, topic of polemic discussion decade ago.1 The best known experiments testing sentence combining in college-the Daiker, Kerek, and Morenberg study at Miami University2 and the Stewart study at the University of New Brunswick3-report gains in as indicated by increases in clause length and T-unit length among students who were formally taught sentence-combining techniques. Three primary assumptions underlie this research: 1) T-unit length and, in particular, clause length are reliable measures of the syntactic skills of older writers; 2) the syntactic maturity of college students is below desirable level; and 3) increased syntactic maturity leads to increased writing effectiveness. The first assumption is based on the research of Kellogg Hunt.4 Hunt's application of transformational grammar to the analysis of syntactic development enabled him to explain how children increasingly' use embedding and deletion transformations to pack more information into less space as they advance through the grades. However, it was Hunt's work in identifying indices of maturity--especially the T-unit--that brought his research wide circulation. He computed the mean clause and T-unit lengths and the mean clause per T-unit ratios for groups of students in the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades, finding together these measures mark regular stages of development in writing, stages confirmed by several subsequent studies of the prose of schoolchildren.5 Hunt later took the same measurements from eighteen expository essays appearing in Harper's and The Atlantic as a target for less accomplished persons to aim toward.6 Hunt thought the same processes of embedding he had observed through the grades account for the added clause and T-unit length in the prose of skilled adults. He concluded that if the average high school graduate is ever to write like skilled adult, he has nearly as much yet

Syntactic Maturity and Vocabulary Richness of Learning Disabled Children at Four Age Levels

This past decade has witnessed an increasing number of studies attending to vocabulary and language maturity. Some of these studies analyzed oral language or written language, while a few included oral and written discourse. Several of the studies that looked at spontaneous oral language were directly related to this research (Ciani 1974, Fox 1970, O'Donnell, Griffin, & Norris 1967). There was a question however whether the findings with normal children would be generalizable to a population of learning disabled children. In a population sample of learning disabled children what is the developmental trend in their language? How does it compare to the trend found in studies with normal children? Are the findings the same when measured by different instruments? Findings are summarized as follows. (1) A syntactic developmental pattern existed as measured by the number of T-units (one main clause and all subordinated clauses) and the word length per T-unit. (2) A comparison of the syntactic developmental trend of learning disabled and normal children revealed that normal children experience periods of rapid growth, while learning disabled children exhibit gradual control of syntax across the four age levels. (3) A vocabulary developmental pattern exists as measured by the corrected type-token ratio and the number of different words spoken. (4) A comparison of the vocabulary developmental trend of normal and learning disabled children revealed that vocabulary increases for both groups with advancing age.

T-Unit Analysis in Second Language Research: Applications, Problems and Limitations

T-unit analysis has been widely applied to measure the overall syntactic complexity of speech and writing samples. It has been used both in crosssectional descriptive studies and in experimental studies to measure the effect of sentence-combining as a curricular activity designed to enhance normal developmental trends in syntactic maturity. The claim that mean T-unit length is a valid measure of overall syntactic complexity is well supported. In recent years, T-unit analysis has been applied in studies of second language learning to characterize the syntactic nature of linguistic input and to assess the syntactic maturity of learners' written production. In all studies, T-unit analysis was seen to provide an objective and reliable method of determining the overall syntactic complexity of language samples. Nevertheless, the validity of the T-unit as a measure and the significance of overall syntactic complexity as a variable have been questioned. The present paper is a critical review of arguments for and against T-unit analysis in second language research; suggestions are made about the validity, usefulness, and limitations of this and other measures of overall syntactic complexity.

The Influence of Generative Rhetoric on the Syntactic Maturity and Writing Effectiveness of College Freshmen

The Influence of Generative Rhetoric on the Syntactic Maturity and Writing Effectiveness of College Freshmen

Syntactic Maturity, Mechanics of Writing, and Teachers’ Quality Ratings

Syntactic Maturity, Mechanics of Writing, and Teachers’ Quality Ratings