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DEVELOPMENTAL MEASURES OF MORPHOSYNTACTIC ACQUISITION IN
MONOLINGUAL 3-, 4-, AND 5-YEAR-OLD SPANISH-SPEAKING CHILDREN
by
Anny Patricia Castilla
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D.
Department of Speech-Language Pathology
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Anny Patricia Castilla (2008)
ii
Developmental Measures of Morphosyntactic Acquisition in Monolingual 3-, 4-, and 5-Year-Old
Spanish-Speaking Children
Anny Patricia Castilla
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Speech Language Pathology
University of Toronto
2008
ABSTRACT
This research investigated aspects of the morphosyntactic language development of 115 3-, 4-,
and 5-year-old monolingual Spanish-speaking preschool children who resided in Cali, Colombia.
Two general language measures were collected from the children: a standardized receptive
vocabulary measure (Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes, TVIP), and a parental report of speech
and language problems. In addition, morphosyntactic measures of language development were
obtained using both a story retelling and an elicitation task. Developmental language measures
such as number of T-units (NU-TU), mean length of T-units (MLTU), subordination index
(SUB-I), and grammatical errors per T-unit (GRE-TU) were derived from the narratives.
Percentages of correct use of direct and indirect object pronouns, reflexive pronouns, definite
articles, indefinite articles, adjectives and plurals were obtained from an elicitation task that was
specifically designed for this study. Counts of use of these grammatical structures were also
calculated from the narratives.
There were no statistically significant differences between the three age groups on standard
scores for the TVIP or scores for the parent questionnaires, indicating that the three age groups
were comparable. For the developmental language measures there was an increasing
iii
developmental pattern for NU-TU, MLTU and SUB-I, but no changes were found for GRE-TU.
Statistically significant changes for the productive use of the grammatical structures of interest to
this study were almost always seen between 3 and 4 years of age. Adult use of these grammatical
structures was always statistically significantly more correct than child productions. This
investigation provides novel normative data for NU-TU, MLTU, SUB-I and GRE-TU for
preschool children. This investigation also offers original data on the productive use of object
pronouns, articles, adjectives and plurals across the preschool years. The language battery used
in this investigation proved to be sensitive to developmental changes between 3 and 4-5 year
olds and has the potential to be used as an eventual diagnostic tool for the identification of
children with language disorders. Speech-language pathologists who work with Spanish-
speaking children will be able to use this normative information to conduct more objective
language assessments.
iv
A la memoria de mi abuelo, el hombre más sabio que ha existido en mi mundo.
To the memory of my grandfather, the wisest man in my world.
A mi papá, quien nunca dudó que yo podía y quien me dio alas para volar. Sin él yo no sería la
persona quien soy hoy.
To my dad, who never doubted that I could do it and who gave me wings so I could fly. Without
him I wouldn’t be who I am.
v
AKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my most profound gratitude to those who supported me during this
journey:
! To the members of my supervisory committee, Dr. Alice Eriks-Brophy, Dr. Carla
Johnson, and Dr. Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux for their invaluable guidance during the
design, implementation and analysis of this dissertation. Particularly, to Dr. Alice Eriks-
Brophy for her personal and professional support during my doctorate studies and for the
time and effort dedicated to review the multiple versions of this manuscript. To Dr. Ana
Teresa Perez-Leroux for her help with the design of the Elicitation Task and for
awakening the linguist in me. To Dr. Carla Johnson for her essential insights on
methodological design that made this investigation unique.
! To Dr. Maria Adelaida Restrepo for all previous interesting discussions that originated
this dissertation.
! To all the children who participated in this study and who shared not only their language
with me but also their precious smiles.
! To my family, who although they were far away physically, were always in my heart.
! To my dear friends Melanie, Heidi, and Santiago for all the love and support they gave
me during this process. They made my life easier and happier.
! To God, for giving me the opportunity of spending five years of my life doing something
absolutely enjoyable…I did truly enjoy and love every moment of it.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of tables and figures
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………. ii
Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………. v
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 1
2. Grammatical errors of Italian-, French-, and Spanish-speaking children with
SLI………………………………………………………………………………. 5
2.1 Specific language impairment overview……………………………….. 6
2.2 Research on Italian-, French-, and Spanish-Speaking Children with SLI 8
2.2.1 Articles …………………………………………………………. 9
2.2.2 Clitic pronouns……………………………………….…………. 14
2.2.3 Verb inflections…………………………….…………………… 18
2.2.4 Auxiliaries avere and essere……………………………………. 21
2.2.5 Noun-plural agreement…………………………………….…… 21
2.2.6 Adjective agreement……………………………………..……... 22
2.2.7 Subject-verb number agreement………………………………... 23
2.2.8 Prepositions…………………………………………………….. 23
2.3 Summary of grammatical manifestation of SLI in Italian, French and
Spanish…………………………………………………………………. 24
2.4 Further research in Spanish-speaking children with SLI………………. 28
3. Language assessment in monolingual and bilingual children……………….. 31
4. Spanish language acquisition………………………………………………… 37
4.1. Spanish grammatical structures overview.…………………………….. 38
4.1.1. Noun phrase agreement…………………………………………. 38
4.1.2. Clitic pronouns………………………………………………….. 39
4.2. Research on morphosyntactic Spanish acquisition…………………….. 41
4.2.1. Articles………………………………………………………….. 42
4.2.2. Object Clitic pronouns………………………………………….. 43
4.2.3. Noun- adjective agreement……………………………………... 43
4.2.4. Plural inflection………………………………………………… 44
4.2.5. Summary of acquisition of grammatical structures…………….. 45
4.3. Research on developmental measures…………………………………. 45
5. Purpose and questions………………………………………………………... 48
vii
6. Method……………………………………………………………………… 50
6.1 Participants............................................................................................... 51
6.2 Measures ................................................................................................. 54
6.2.1 Parent questionnaire......................................................................... 55
6.2.2 Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody (TVIP)......................... 56
6.2.3 Language sample.............................................................................. 56
6.2.4 Elicitation Task...............................................................….............. 58
6.3 Procedures.................................................................................……....... 61
6.4 Reliability................................................................................................. 62
7. Results and discussion……………………………………………………… 64
7.1.1 Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes TVIP………………………….. 64
7.1.2 Parent questionnaires……………………………………………… 65
7.1.3. Discussion of the results from the TVIP and parent questionnaire. 67
7.2 Developmental language measures……………………………………… 71
7.2.1 Number of T-Units………………………………………………. 72
7.2.2 Mean Length of T-Units…………………………………………. 73
7.2.3 Subordination Index……………………………………………... 74
7.2.4 Grammatical errors per T-unit…………………………………… 75
7.2.5 Summary of developmental language measures based on spontaneous
Language………………………………………….…………………… 76
7.2.6 Discussion of developmental language measures……………….. 77
7.3 Acquisition of Grammatical Structures…………………………………. 84
7.3.1 Direct object pronouns…………………………………………... 86
7.3.2 Reflexive pronouns…………………………………………….... 88
7.3.3 Indirect object pronouns…………………………………….…… 91
7.3.4 Adjectives……………………………………………………….. 93
7.3.5 Indefinite articles………………………………………………... 95
7.3.6 Definite articles…………………………………………………. 98
7.3.7 Plurals…………………………………………………………… 100
7.3.8 Elicitation Task Total Score ………………………………………. 103
7.3.9 Summary of Results…………………………………………….. 104
7.3.10 Discussion of development of grammatical structures……….. 106
8. Implications and further directions………………………………………….. 117
8.1 Limitations……………………………………………………………… 128
8.2 Further directions………………………………………………………. 129
8.3 Contributions…………………………………………………………… 130
References……………………………………………………………………… 132
Appendix 1. Parent questionnire (Spanish version)……………………………. 140
Appendix 2. Parent questionnaire (English version)…………………………… 143
Appendix 3. Story retelling task script ……… ……………………..………….. 146
viii
Appendix 4. Language sample coding scheme. ………………………………… 148
Appendix 5. Elicitation task …………………….……………………………… 151
Appendix 6. Consent forms and assent script…………………………….…….. 160
Appendix 7 Direct object clitics……………………………………………….. 164
Appendix 7. Reflexives ………………..………………………………………. 166
Appendix 8. Adjectives…………………………………………………………. 167
Appendix 9. Indefinite articles…………………………………………………. 168
Appendix 10. Definite articles………………………………………………….. 170
Appendix 11. Correlation table controlling for Age.………………………….. 172
ix
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1. Spanish, French, and Italian definite and indefinite articles………… 9
Table 2. Spanish, French, and Italian object clitic pronouns…………………. 15
Table 3. Grammatical errors in Italian-speaking children with SLI………….. 26
Table 4. Grammatical errors in French-speaking children with SLI…………. 27
Table 5. Grammatical errors in Spanish-speaking children with SLI………... 28
Table 6. Spanish definite and indefinite articles……………………………… 39
Table 7. Spanish clitic pronouns……………………………………………… 40
Table 8. Acquisition of grammatical structures……………………..………. 45
Table 9. Means and Standard Deviations (in parentheses) for Developmental
Language Measures………………………………………………….………… 47
Table 10. Grammatical structures for the elicitation task ……………………. 60
Table 11. Point to point reliability………………………………………….… 63
Table 12. Descriptive statistics for standard scores in TVIP………………… 64
Table 13. Frequency data by age group for the PRSLP ……….…………….. 67
Table 14. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for NU-TU………..…….... 73
Table 15. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for MLTU………..……..... 74
Table 16. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for SUB-I………………… 75
Table 17. Descriptive Statistics for Developmental Language Measures…… 77
Table 18. Comparison of Means and Standard Deviations for Developmental
Language Measures……………………………………………………….... 79
Table 19. Descriptive Statistics for Direct Object Pronoun Use – Spontaneous
Language …………………………………………………………………….. 87
Table 20. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Direct Object Pronouns 88
Table 21. Descriptive Statistics for Reflexive Pronouns -Spontaneous Language 90
Table 22. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Reflexive Pronouns……. 90
Table 23. Descriptive Statistics for Indirect Object Pronouns - Spontaneous
Language…………………………………………………………………… 92
Table 24. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Indirect Object Pronouns… 93
x
Table 25. Descriptive Statistics for Adjective Use - Spontaneous Language…….. 94
Table 26. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Adjectives………………… 95
Table 27. Descriptive Statistics for Indefinite Article Use - Spontaneous Language 97
Table 28. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Indefinite Articles………….. 98
Table 29. Descriptive Statistics for Definite Article Use - Spontaneous Language… 99
Table 30. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Definite Articles…………….. 100
Table 31. Descriptive Statistics for Plurals - Spontaneous Language………………. 102
Table 32. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Plurals………………………. 102
Table 33. Descriptive Statistics for Total Elicitation Task………………………… 103
Table 34. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Total Score on the Elicitation
task…………………………………………………………………………………. 104
Table 35. Summary of Group Comparison Results……………………………….. 105
Table 36. Summary of Findings for Grammatical Structures…………………….. 107
Figure 1. Chronological age box plot……………………………………………….. 51
Figure 2. Pie chart of number of children per school independent of SES………… 53
Figure 3. Pie chart of percentage of children per SES………………………………. 53
Figure 4. TVIP standard score distribution per age group…………………………… 65
Figure 5. Means and two SD for PRSLP across age groups……………………..…… 66
Figure 6. Mean performance for NU-TU for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children ……. 73
Figure 7. Mean performance for MLTU for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children…….. 74
Figure 8. Mean performance for SUB-I for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children…….. 75
Figure 9. Mean performance for GRE-TU for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children….. 76
Figure 10. Means and standard deviations of direct object pronoun use- Elicited
language………………………………………………………………………………. 87
Figure 11. Means and SD bars for direct object pronouns- Spontaneous language….. 88
Figure 12. Means and SD for reflexive pronoun use- Elicited language…………….. 89
Figure 13. Mean and SD bars for reflexive pronoun use– Spontaneous language…… 90
Figure 14. Means and SD for indirect object pronoun use- Elicited language…..…… 91
Figure 15. Mean and SD bars for indirect object pronoun use – Spontaneous language 92
xi
Figure 16. Means and SD for adjective use- Elicited language……………………… 94
Figure 17. Mean and SD bars for adjective use - Spontaneous language…………… 95
Figure 18. Means and SD for indefinite article use- Elicited language……………… 96
Figure 19. Mean and SD bars for indefinite article use– Spontaneous language…… 97
Figure 20. Means and SD for definite article use- Elicited language………………... 99
Figure 21. Mean and SD bars for definite article use– Spontaneous language……… 100
Figure 22. Means and SD for plural use - Elicited language……………………….. 101
Figure 23. Mean and SD bars for plural use– Spontaneous language……………… 102
Figure 24. Means and SD for the total score on the Elicitation Task ……………… 103
1
1. INTRODUCTION
Assessment in multicultural and multilingual contexts has recently been a topic of interest to
clinicians and researchers who work in countries where multiple languages are spoken ,as is the
case for Canada. French and English are both official languages in this country, but a variety of
languages are also spoken due to an increase in immigration in the last three decades. A good
example of multilingualism of Canada is the city of Toronto, where it is not surprising to hear
many different languages being used in everyday life. The Canadian Census of 2001 reported
that 39% of the population of Toronto spoke a non-official language as a first language, with
Chinese being the largest language group, followed by Italian, Portuguese, Punjabi and Spanish.
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in this type of multilingual context encounter a
challenging task in providing appropriate services for this linguistically diverse population.
In 1997, the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologist
(CASLPA) developed a position statement regarding SLPs working in multicultural and
multilingual contexts. One of the most important points in this document was the need to assess
both the first and second language of the bilingual child (Crago & Westernoff, 1997). Although
this is very important to ensure appropriate assessment of bilingual children, it poses some
interesting challenges for SLPs. Consider the example of a Spanish-English bilingual child who
needs to have his language skills assessed. To deliver services to this child and assess him in
Spanish and English, CASLPA suggests using bilingual and bicultural SLPs or a group of
collaborators who are able to communicate in the language(s) of interest. However, the
challenge is not only to find a bilingual Spanish-English SLP or a Spanish-speaking collaborator,
2
but also to find linguistically appropriate assessment tools to adequately identify language
disorders in Spanish-speaking children.
Paul (2001) defined a language disorder as a “significant deficit in learning to talk,
understand, or use any aspect of language appropriately, relative to both environmental and
norm-referenced expectations for children of similar developmental level (p. 3)”. According to
this definition, it is essential to have access to norm-referenced language information to
administer proper language assessments and accurately diagnose language disorders. Normative
information and linguistically appropriate assessments are widely available for English-speaking
children. However, this is not the case for other languages, including Spanish. Research on
language assessment, language acquisition, and normative developmental data for Spanish-
speaking (SS) children continue to be very limited.
Fortunately, in the case of Spanish, there is some information available on disordered
language. A few researchers have attempted to describe the morphosyntactic characteristics of
SS children with specific language impairment (SLI) (e.g., Bedore & Leonard, 2001, 2005;
Restrepo, 1998). Restrepo (1998) investigated SLI in SS children and suggested that these
children showed significant differences in performance on developmental language measures
such as mean length of terminable units (T-unit; an independent clause plus all its modifiers;
Hunt, 1965) and number of grammatical errors per terminable unit when compared to typically
developing children. Although these measures appear to have a clinical value for SLPs, the
normative information available on these measures is limited.
Returning to our Spanish-English bilingual example, Restrepo (1998) suggests that mean
length of T-units can differentiate between typically developing children and children with
language disorders. Therefore, the Spanish-speaking SLP collects language data from our child
3
and calculates this measure. Unfortunately, this information will serve only as a description of
the child’s language because there are no normative data on this measure that can be used to
provide an adequate comparison.
Other researchers suggest that SS children with SLI also demonstrate difficulties with
specific grammatical structures such as articles, clitic object pronouns, adjectives and plurals
(Bedore & Leonard, 2001; Gutierrez-Clellen, Restrepo, Bedore, Peña, & Anderson, 2000;
Jacobson & Schwartz, 2002; Restrepo & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2004). However, only limited
information is available on the development of these grammatical structures in typically
developing SS children. Several authors have reported the scarcity of research on the acquisition
of Spanish (e.g., Anderson, 1998; Bedore, 2004; Centeno, Anderson & Obler, 2007). This
information is needed in order to provide accurate assessment and diagnosis of language
disorders in monolingual and bilingual SS children.
The present study was conceived as a possible source of information to help SLPs in the
complex task of assessing morphosyntax in monolingual and bilingual SS children. SLPs who
work in monolingual and multilingual contexts will benefit by having information on the
language development of SS children that can be used in the assessment and possible
identification of language disorders. Child language researchers can also benefit from this
information by potentially using it to make cross linguistic comparisons of language
development.
This study is supported by various areas of knowledge that are closely related to
morphosyntactic language assessment in monolingual and bilingual SS children. The
information presented in the following three chapters provides the reader with background
knowledge on SLI in Romance languages, language assessment in monolingual and bilingual
4
children, the grammar of the Spanish language, morphosyntactic Spanish language acquisition,
and developmental language measures in Spanish-speaking children. Chapter 2 will cover the
grammatical structures that have been found to be problematic for Italian-, French-, and Spanish-
speaking children. This chapter is presented first because it justifies the selection of the
grammatical structures of interest to this study. Chapter 3 will cover background information on
language assessment in monolingual and bilingual children. Chapter 4 will cover specific
findings on language development and developmental measures for Spanish-speaking children
and will serve as the source of information for the hypotheses presented in Chapter 5. Chapter 6
will present the methods of the study and Chapter 7 will present the results and discussion.
Finally, Chapter 8 will discuss the general implications of this study and will show possibilities
for further research directions.
5
2. GRAMMATICAL ERRORS OF ITALIAN-, FRENCH-, AND SPANISH-
SPEAKING CHILDREN WITH SLI
Cross-linguistic research in SLI has significantly increased over the past two decades. The
growing interest in this line of research stems from both clinical and theoretical perspectives.
Clinically, such research provides useful data for the assessment and treatment of children
with SLI across different languages. Theoretically, it provides data to examine the various
accounts that attempt to explain the underlying deficits of children with SLI across languages.
Research in SLI has been mainly conducted in English, Italian, French, Spanish,
German, Dutch, and Hebrew. The languages of interest to this research are Italian, French, and
Spanish. These languages are called Romance languages because they originated from Latin,
the language of the Romans. Romance languages have many similar characteristics, both in
terms of grammar and vocabulary, because of their common origin. To study a group of
languages to investigate similarities and differences among them is one among a number of
approaches to cross-linguistic research (Jakubowicz, 1996).
The purpose of this chapter is to survey the research on grammatical structures that are
problematic for Italian-, French-, and Spanish-speaking children with SLI. In addition, this
review aims to examine the research in Italian and French, looking for potential areas of
interest for further research on Spanish SLI. Although various accounts have been proposed to
explain the grammatical difficulties that will be described in this chapter, its purpose is not to
examine these accounts or to find evidence supporting any specific explanation. Although this
is a very interesting topic of study, it is beyond the scope of the present research.
6
2.1. Specific Language Impairment Overview
Children with SLI experience significant limitations in language ability that can not be
explained by neurological dysfunction, hearing loss, oral motor problems, deficits in
nonverbal intelligence, or other known factors (Leonard, 1998). The prevalence rate of SLI
has been estimated to be 7.4% in monolingual English-speaking kindergarten children
(Tomblin, Records, Buckwalter, Zhang, Smith & O’Brien, 1997). Boys have a prevalence rate
of 8% compared to girls whose rate is 6% (Tomblin et al., 1997). SLI is considered to be a
persistent disorder and, although gains in language ability are usually seen over time, the
language difficulties often remain throughout adolescence and adulthood (Leonard, 1998).
Limitations in the language ability of children with SLI have been described as
consisting of difficulties in lexical learning, phonology, pragmatics, and, particularly,
morphosyntax (Leonard, 1998). Two primary lines of research have tried to explain the
underlying deficit of children with SLI: those focusing on limited processing capacity
accounts and those emphasizing linguistic accounts. Limited processing accounts claim that a
deficit in processing abilities influences children’s language acquisition due to limitations in
either memory, energy, or rate at which information can be processed, or some combination of
these that is necessary to perform a given task. For example, Leonard proposed the Surface
Hypothesis Account (Leonard, 1998). This account claims that not all information can be
processed efficiently because of a limitation in processing capacity, and as a result processing
focuses more on the most salient characteristics of the input and less on the least salient forms.
The less salient forms are sometimes processed incompletely and, consequently, more
7
exposure to these forms is required before they are established in the grammar (Leonard,
1998).
Linguistic accounts attempt to explain the grammatical difficulties seen in children
with SLI in a number of different ways. Some accounts claim that the language development
of children with SLI is delayed. For example, the Extended Optional Infinitive Account
(Rice, Wexler, & Cleave, 1995) suggests that children remain in an earlier stage of
development where they use infinitive forms and do not mark tense. On the other hand, other
accounts claim that there is a specific deficit in the linguistic knowledge of children with SLI.
For example, the Missing Agreement Account (Clahsen & Hansen, 1993) proposes that
children with SLI have a specific deficit in producing correct structural agreements. Although
linguistic accounts differ on whether the underlying problem is a developmental delay or a
deficit in linguistic knowledge, they all convey the notion of a lack of age-appropriate
knowledge of the rules of the linguistic system.
Manifestations of the lack of age-appropriate linguistic knowledge are not parallel
across languages. For example, English-speaking children with SLI show particular
difficulties with copula (be) forms, present tense third person singular verb inflections, and
regular past tense verb inflections (Leonard, 1998). These verb inflection problems are not
necessarily seen across languages. In fact, in some languages, including Spanish, children
with SLI seem to have minor difficulties with verb inflections as compared to the difficulties
seen in certain function words (Bedore & Leonard, 2001).
8
2.2. Research on Italian-, French-, and Spanish-Speaking Children with SLI
Examinations of SLI in Italian, French and Spanish differ with respect to the amount
of research available on each language. Research in Italian speaking children began in the
1980’s, and thus a considerable amount of research in this language is available. In contrast, a
limited number of studies are available on Spanish and French, as research on these languages
is more recent. The research on Italian comes from Italy, research on French comes from
France and Québec (Canada) and research on Spanish comes from the United States, Spain,
Mexico and Puerto Rico. Interestingly, some of the evidence of grammatical difficulties in
Spanish-speaking children stems from contexts where Spanish is a minority language. It is
possible that the majority language, which would be the second language, has an impact on
the first language skills of the children. Therefore, results from contexts where a majority
language exists that is different from the one being studied should be interpreted with caution.
The research in this section is organized according to grammatical structures. Each
grammatical structure is reviewed in light of the three languages of interest. Research in
Italian is presented first, followed by French and then Spanish. Overviews of the similarities
and differences in the grammatical structures are presented at the beginning of the article and
clitic sections. Results from elicited and spontaneous language are presented for each
grammatical structure when such information is available. It is possible that children will
perform differently in these two types of tasks because in an elicited language task, children
are obliged to use a specific grammatical structure that they might not produce or might avoid
in spontaneous language.
9
Research in SLI is commonly characterized by group comparisons of language abilities
of children with SLI and typically developing children. These typically developing children
can be either age-peers (children matched on chronological age) or language-peers (children
matched on their performance on a specific language measure). On one hand, age-peers
provide information to be able to identify a delay in the development of language abilities. On
the other side, language-peers provide information to identify a possible deviant pattern that
can not be explained by delays in language development. The research examined in the
upcoming sections frequently use a comparison group matched on either age or language
skills, or sometimes both.
2.2.1. Articles
The article systems of Italian, French and Spanish are very similar. In these languages, nouns
have grammatical gender (feminine/masculine). Articles must agree with nouns in number and
gender. Italian is different in that more than one article form is available depending on the
initial sound of the word that follows the article (see Table 1).
Table 1. Spanish, French, and Italian Definite and Indefinite Articles
Articles Feminine
Singular
Feminine
Plural
Masculine
Singular
Masculine
Plural
Spanish Definite la las lo los
Indefinite una unas un unos
French Definite la les le les
Indefinite une des un des
Italian Definite La/l’a
le il/lob/l’
ai/gli
c
Indefinite Uno b/un una/un’
b
NOTE. a Used when subsequent word begins with vowel.
b Used when subsequent word begins with /z/ or /s/
cluster. c Used when subsequent word begins with vowel, /z/ or /s/ cluster
10
Italian-speaking (IS) children with SLI have difficulties with articles as evidenced in
both elicited and spontaneous language. For example, Bortolini, Caselli and Leonard (1997)
studied the use of singular definite articles by IS children with SLI using an elicitation task.
They reported that IS children with SLI produced 51% correct articles compared to typically
developing (TD) children matched on mean length of utterance (MLU ) and chronological
age, who produced 85.67% and 88.33%, respectively. Similarly, Leonard, Bortolini, Caselli,
and Sabbadini (1993) compared IS children with SLI to typically developing (TD) children on
the production of singular definite articles using a picture description task. They found that
children in the TD group had higher percentages of use of these articles in obligatory contexts
than did IS children with SLI.
Evidence from spontaneous language comes from studies such as Leonard, Sabbadini,
Volterra, and Leonard (1988), who studied spontaneous language samples of IS children with
SLI. They reported that these children showed difficulties with the use of definite and
indefinite articles when compared to data obtained from TD children. Also based on language
samples, Leonard and Bortolini (1998) reported that IS children with SLI differed
significantly from the TD children matched on MLU in their correct use of articles. The
percentage of use in obligatory contexts for the SLI group was 68% and for the TD group was
84.33%.
Longitudinal studies also show that IS children with SLI have difficulties with
articles. For example, Cipriani, Botarri, Chilosi and Pfanner (1998) followed the language
development of an IS child with SLI. Language samples were collected during conversation,
11
free play and book reading. Articles were slow to develop in the language of this child, with
percentages of correct production between 2% and 19% between the ages of 6;2 and 8;9.
The grammatical error type reported as the most frequent for IS children in both
elicited and spontaneous language is the omission of the article (Bortolini et al. 1997; Botarri,
Cipriani, Chilosi & Pfanner, 1998, 2001; Cipriani et al., 1998; Leonard & Bortolini, 1998).
The research reported difficulty for the SLI children with the definite singular masculine form
il (Leonard, Bortolini, Caselli, & Sabbadini, 1993; Leonard et al., 1988) and the indefinite
singular masculine articles form un (Leonard et al, 1988). The difference between IS children
with SLI and TD children in the use of definite singular masculine forms was reportedly quite
large. For example, Leonard, Bortolini, Caselli, and Sabbadini (1993) reported that the
definite singular masculine form il was used correctly 26.7% of the time and the form lo was
used correctly 21.13% of the time compared to TD children with percentages of correct use of
82.68% and 77.27% respectively.
Data from the previous studies show that IS children with SLI have difficulties with
definite and indefinite articles. These errors are mainly characterized by omission of the
articles. The masculine definite singular form is the most affected article in Italian. In
addition, articles are omitted significantly more often by IS children with SLI than any other
grammatical structure (Botarri, Cipriani, Chilosi & Pfanner, 1998, 2001).
Interestingly, French-speaking (FS) children with SLI seem not to have difficulties
with articles, in contrast to what is seen in Italian (Jakubowicz, Nash, Rigaut, & Gérard, 1998;
Le Normand, Leonard, & McGregor, 1993; Paradis & Crago, 2001). For example,
Jakubowicz, et al. (1998) studied the production of definite articles from children with SLI
12
and TD children using an elicitation task. They reported no differences between FS children
with SLI and TD in the use of definite articles. Data from spontaneous language samples seem
to point in the same direction. Paradis and Crago (2001) studied spontaneous language
samples from FS children with SLI and two groups with TD matched on MLU and age. Their
findings suggested that children with SLI did not differ from normally developing age-, and
MLU-matched children with TD in their use of definite and indefinite articles in obligatory
contexts. Moreover, Le Normand, et al. (1993) studied spontaneous language and reported
similar results. Thus there is no available evidence that FS children with SLI have difficulties
with articles in either spontaneous or elicited language.
Conversely, Spanish-speaking (SS) children with SLI have difficulties with articles
evidenced in both spontaneous and elicited language. Restrepo and Gutierrez-Clellen (2001)
studied language samples of children with SLI and TD, aged 5;0 to 7;1 and matched on age.
They investigated the production of article errors and found significant differences between
children with SLI and TD the number of article errors, where children with TD exhibited a
mean of 2.8% of article errors and children with SLI produced a mean of 22.3% article errors.
Examining spontaneous language as well as elicited language, Bedore and Leonard
(2001, 2005) studied 15 SS children with SLI and two groups of 15 TD children matched on
age or MLU. These authors found significant differences in the percentage of use of definite
and indefinite articles in obligatory contexts when compared to TD children matched on age
using an elicitation task (Bedore & Leonard, 2001). They obtained the same difference for
definite articles using spontaneous language samples (Bedore & Leonard, 2005). Similarly,
Anderson and Souto (2005) studied the use of articles by SS children with SLI and TD
13
matched on age using both an elicitation task and a language sample. They found that 4-
and 5- year-old SS children with SLI differed from TD children in the accuracy of article
production in both the elicitation task (SLI 64.3% and TD 95.5%) and the language sample
(SLI 85.4% and TD 98.4%). Although the mean accuracy rate for SS children with SLI was
significantly lower than for the TD children, most of the children were quite accurate in the
production of articles in spontaneous language.
As was the case with IS children, the article error type most frequently reported in SS
children with SLI is the omission of the article (Anderson & Souto, 2005; Bedore & Leonard,
2001, 2005, Bosch & Serra, 1997) followed by article substitution errors (Restrepo &
Gutierrez-Clellen, 2001). Substitution errors are reported as gender agreement errors
(Anderson & Souto, 2005; Restrepo & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2001) and number agreement errors
(Bedore & Leonard, 2001). Data on the gender agreement errors are inconclusive. Restrepo
and Gutierrez-Clellen (2001) reported that agreement errors consisted primarily of
substitutions of definite masculine articles for definite feminine articles. However, Anderson
and Souto (2005) reported agreement errors on both masculine and feminine articles. Number
agreement errors were reported as consisting of plural forms replaced by the singular form of
the same gender (Bedore & Leonard, 2001). Errors in the definite form were found to be
significantly greater than errors in the indefinite form (Restrepo & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2001).
In summary, the data from studies of Spanish show that children with SLI have
difficulties with definite and indefinite articles similar to those found in IS children with SLI.
Omission of the articles is the error type most frequently reported in both Spanish and Italian,
14
although gender and number errors have been reported in Spanish. Further research is
needed to determine whether a specific set of articles is particularly affected.
Due to the commonalities in the article system among the three languages under
review, one would expect to find similar cross-linguistic error patterns. Surprisingly, FS
children with SLI do not appear to show any difficulties with this structure. There are two
possible explanations for this phenomenon. First, French articles are syntactically more
obligatory than articles in Italian and Spanish. For some expressions, Italian and Spanish
articles are optional, while the article is required for French. For example, in the Spanish
sentence /los niños juegan con carros / the children play with cars/, the noun cars does not
require a determiner. The same sentence in French requires an obligatory determiner /les
enfants jouent avec les autos/. Perhaps the fact that the use of the article is more regular and
frequent makes it easier for French speaking children to learn it. Another possible explanation
is a cross linguistic difference in stress patterns. Spanish, Italian and French articles are
unstressed; however, it has been hypothesized that the duration of French articles is very
similar to the duration of stressed morphemes, making them perceptually similar to stressed
morphemes and therefore more potentially accessible (Le Normand et al., 1993).
2.2.2. Clitic pronouns
Clitic pronouns are free morphemes that must occur adjacent to the verb. The clitic pronoun
systems in Italian, French and Spanish are also very similar. Italian, French and Spanish clitic
pronoun systems are very rich because object pronouns must agree with the nouns they
replace in number and gender (See Table 2).
15
Table 2. Spanish, French, and Italian Object Clitic Pronouns
French Italian Spanish
Person Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
1st
me nous mi ci Me nos
2nd
te vous ti vi Te os
3rd
Masculine le les lo li lo los
3rd
Feminine la les la le la las
3rd
Masculine dative lui leur gli loro Le les
3rd
Feminine dative lui leur le loro Le les
3rd
Reflexive se se si si Se se
Research on IS children with SLI suggests that these children have difficulties with
clitic pronouns, as evidenced in spontaneous language. Although few studies have been
conducted on clitic pronouns in Italian, the results are consistent. For example, Cipriani et al.
(1998) followed the language development of an Italian-speaking child with SLI. The child
under investigation produced 18% to 50% clitic pronouns in obligatory contexts between the
age of 6;2 and 9;4 in spontaneous language. Clitics only appeared in present tense contexts.
Similarly, Leonard et al. (1988) studied Italian-speaking children with SLI and found that
object clitic pronouns in the singular and plural form of the first, second, and third person
were used with extremely low frequencies. They claimed that story telling and picture
sequence activities were contexts that posed particular difficulty for clitic production.
Also based on data from language samples, Leonard and Bortolini (1998) investigated
the use of direct object, indirect object, reflexive, and impersonal subject clitics in obligatory
contexts, and found that children with SLI differed significantly from TD children in the
production of all clitic pronouns investigated. Unfortunately, no specific differences among
the different types of clitic pronouns were reported. This study stands out from the others in
that it included direct, indirect, reflexive and impersonal subject clitics in the analysis.
16
Hence, there is evidence that suggests that IS children with SLI show difficulties
with clitics. However, the evidence is somewhat limited and further research is needed to
confirm the findings. Omission of the clitic is the most common error type reported for clitics
for the IS children (Cipriani, et al., 1998; Leornard & Bortonlini, 1998).
There is evidence that suggests that FS children with SLI have difficulties with clitic
pronouns as well. Using spontaneous language samples, Hamann, Ohayon, Dubé,
Frauenfelder, Rizzi, Starke and Zesiger (2003) studied the production of object clitic pronouns
by FS children with SLI. The researchers reported that these children had a tendency not to
use direct object clitics and to use lexical complements instead (e.g., he found the shoes
instead of he found them). Children with SLI produced a lexical complement 68% of the time,
omitted an object pronoun 11% of the time, and produced an object pronoun 21% of the time
in obligatory contexts. Hamman et al. investigated direct and indirect objects, but did not
differentiate between them in their analysis.
Using an elicitation task, Grüter (2005) studied the production of object clitic pronouns
by FS children with SLI. Grüter reported that FS children with SLI produced a lexical
complement 16.5% of the time, omitted an object pronoun 67.2% of the time and produced an
object clitic pronoun 7.5% of the time in obligatory contexts, compared to TD children who
produced object pronouns 72.6% of the time, omitted an object pronoun 7.4% of the time, and
produced a lexical complement 7.4% of the time. The omission rate for this study was much
higher than the omission rate reported by Hamann et al. (2003), possibly because of the nature
of the task. As previously stated, elicitation tasks induce children to produce a target structure
whereas in spontaneous language children produce language within their comfort zone and
17
may avoid certain structures. Perhaps children tend to omit clitic pronouns more often when
they are obliged to use them due to task demands.
Also using an elicitation task, Jakubowicz, Nash, Rigaut, and Gérard (1998) studied
the production of clitic pronouns of FS children with SLI and TD children. They reported that
FS children with SLI differed significantly from normally developing children in their
percentage of correct use of clitic pronouns in obligatory contexts. Jakubowicz et al.
specifically investigated direct object, subject and reflexive pronouns and reported that TD FS
children between the ages of 5;6 and 5;11 correctly produced 78.7% of object clitic pronouns,
95.6% of reflexive clitic pronouns and 97.8% of subject clitic pronouns. FS children with SLI
showed difficulties with the three types of clitics, and significant differences were found
between the two groups. The FS SLI group correctly produced 25.2% of direct object clitic
pronouns, 56.7% of reflexive clitic pronouns and 75.4% of subject clitic pronouns.
French data suggest that FS children with SLI have difficulties with object pronouns,
as evidenced in both spontaneous and elicited language. Additional data from elicited
production suggest that these children might have difficulties with subject and reflexive
pronouns as well, although more research is needed to confirm these findings. The omission
of the pronoun is the most frequent error reported in the above studies.
Research on Spanish has only focused on direct object clitics. Jacobson and Schwartz
(2002) investigated the use of direct object clitic pronouns by a group of SS children with SLI.
They used an elicitation task examining direct object clitic pronouns, and reported that SS
children with SLI correctly used direct object clitic pronouns less frequently than TD children.
Also using an elicitation task, De la Mora, Paradis, Grinstead, Flores and Sanchez (2004)
18
studied a group of SS children with SLI and TD children matched on age or MLU. They
reported that SS children with SLI made significantly more errors on direct object clitics than
TD children.
Bedore and Leonard (2001, 2005) studied a group of SS children with SLI and two
groups of TD children, one matched on chronological age and the other on MLU. Using an
elicitation task, Bedore and Leonard found significant differences in the percentage of use of
direct object clitics in obligatory contexts between children with SLI and TD children.
Subsequently, Bedore and Leonard (2005) studied language samples produced by the children
in the 2001 study. They found that accuracy in use of direct object clitics by children with SLI
differed significantly from TD children.
The error types reported as the most frequent in SS children with SLI across languages
are gender agreement errors (Bedore & Leonard, 2001, 2005; Jacobson & Schwartz, 2002),
omissions (Bedore & Leonard, 2001, 2005; De la Mora, et al., 2004; Jacobson & Schwartz,
2002), and number agreement errors (De la Mora et al., 2004). Interestingly, Italian and
French data suggest omission as a frequent error as well, but do not report other types of
errors. Further research is needed in these three languages to confirm the existing findings and
expand them to other type of clitics.
2.2.3. Verb inflections
Different types of verb inflection difficulties are seen in children with SLI who speak Italian,
French and Spanish. For example, research on verb inflection in Italian is very consistent in
finding difficulties only with the present third person plural inflections as evidenced in
19
spontaneous and elicited language. Evidence from language samples includes Leonard,
Sabbadini, Leonard, and Volterra (1987), who studied present tense third person plural and
singular verb inflection from spontaneous language samples of Italian speaking children with
SLI. They reported that these children had difficulties with the third person plural form that is
usually acquired by TD children by age three. Similarly, Leonard and Bortolini (1998) studied
language samples from a picture description task of 25 children with SLI and 50 TD children
matched on MLU or age. They investigated the use of the present tense singular and plural
third person verb inflections in obligatory contexts, and found that children with SLI differed
significantly from the TD children in the present tense third person plural inflection, but not in
the singular form.
Data from elicitation tasks also demonstrate difficulties with third person plural
inflections. Bortolini et al. (1997) studied first and third person singular and plural verb
inflections of IS children with SLI. Using an elicitation task they found that Italian-speaking
children with SLI showed difficulties with the third person plural inflection when compared to
TD children, but not with the other verb inflections examined. The error type reported as the
most frequent was the production of the third person singular form instead of the plural form,
followed by the substitution of the third person singular form by an infinitive form. This
pattern of error was also seen in the Leonard and Bortolini (1998) study.
Although the evidence in Italian is very consistent regarding difficulties with the third
person singular form, the evidence of verb inflection difficulties in French is not as conclusive
with respect to the type of verb inflection affected. For example, Paradis and Crago (2001)
studied spontaneous language samples of French-speaking children with SLI, and two groups
20
of TD children matched for MLU or age and reported that children with SLI showed
significant differences in the mean percentage of use of past and future tense when compared
to TD children. In a similar way, Jakubowicz and Nash (2001) studied the production of the
present tense versus the past tense in FS children with SLI and TD children using an
elicitation task. They found that present tense was generally correctly produced, but the past
tense was often produced with errors when compared to TD children. However, some of the
children in the SLI group did not have difficulties with the past tense. Researchers attributed
this difference in performance to the degree of severity of the linguistic deficit. Further
research is needed to confirm whether FS children with SLI have difficulties with the future
and past tense.
As is the case in French, limited evidence of difficulties with verb inflection is available
for Spanish. Bedore and Leonard (2001) are the only researchers who have investigated verb
inflection in SS children with SLI. They found significant differences between children with
SLI and TD children matched on age for third person plural present, singular and plural past.
However, these differences did not hold when the same children were compared on the use of
these inflections in spontaneous language (Bedore & Leonard, 2005).
Further research is needed to confirm the findings in Spanish and French. The Italian
data are robust with respect to findings regarding the third person plural inflection; however,
the reason why this inflection is particularly affected remains uncertain. Importantly, it is clear
that these children have few problems with verb inflection compared to the difficulties seen in
function words such as articles and clitics. Verb inflection difficulty in Italian, French, and
21
Spanish-speaking children with SLI is an area that could benefit from being explored in
more detail.
2.2.4. Auxiliaries avere and essere
Research in IS children with SLI shows that auxiliaries are another area of potential difficulty.
Leonard and Bortolini (1998) studied language samples from a picture description task of
children with SLI and TD children matched on MLU or age. They investigated the use of the
auxiliaries avere/have and essere/be in present perfect (the most frequent form of past tense in
Italian). They found that children with SLI differed significantly from TD children in their use
of these auxiliaries in obligatory contexts. Leonard and Bortolini (1998) reported that
omission of the auxiliary was the most common error in children with SLI. Unfortunately, this
is the only study found in all three languages of interest that investigated these auxiliaries and
reported such findings. Further research is needed to expand these results. Studies on
auxiliaries in FS and SS children were not available at the time of this review.
2.2.5. Noun-plural agreement
Italian, French and Spanish have similar patterns of inflection to mark plurality. In Italian, if
the noun ends in a vowel, there is a change in the final vowel of the noun to indicate plural.
For example, masculine nouns that end in the vowel o, change the final vowel to i and
feminine nouns that end in the vowel a change to e to indicate plurality. The nouns ending in
e, regardless of whether these nouns are masculine or feminine, change to i . In French, the
addition of /s/ indicates the plural form of a noun, although this is rarely pronounced un oral
22
language. In Spanish, plural number is marked by adding /s/ to nouns and adjectives when
they end in vowels and /es/ when they end in consonants.
Research on plural noun inflection is very limited for all three languages under review,
however there is some evidence that children with SLI have difficulties with this inflection in
Italian and Spanish. Bortolini et al. (1997) studied the use of plural noun inflection by IS
children with SLI using an elicitation task. They reported that these children differed
significantly from TD children matched on age, but did not differ from the TD children
matched on MLU. In Spanish, Bedore and Leonard (2001) found significant differences in the
percentage of use of plural inflections on nouns. Spanish speaking children with SLI had a
mean percentage of use in obligatory contexts of 55.8% , which was significantly lower than
the percentage for TD children matched on MLU (75.1%) or age (95.87%). In a subsequent
study, Bedore and Leonard (2005) reported that the accuracy of plural inflections was
significantly lower in the SLI group than in the two groups of TD children in spontaneous
language, but the SLI group nevertheless had a high accuracy rate of 92.9%. Grammatical
errors in both Spanish and Italian were characterized by the plural taking the form of the
singular. There was no information for FS children.
2.2.6. Adjective agreement
Adjectives in Italian, French, and Spanish must agree with the noun they refer to in number
and gender. However, only research in Spanish SLI has reported difficulties with adjective
agreement. Bedore and Leonard (2001) reported that SS children with SLI significantly
differed from TD children matched on age or MLU on the percentage of correct inflections of
23
number and gender of adjectives. Spanish-speaking children produced 71.5% correct
adjective agreements as compared to TD children matched on age or MLU who produced
88.2% and 93.5%, respectively. Bedore and Leonard reported that the errors in the inflection
of adjectives were a one-feature error, either a gender agreement error or number agreement
error, but not both gender and agreement errors.
2.2.7. Subject-verb number agreement
Limited evidence from French SLI studies suggests difficulties with subject-verb number
agreement. Franck, Cronel-Ohayon, Chillier, Frauenfelder, Hamman, Rizzi and Zesiger
(2004) studied accuracy of subject-verb number agreement of FS children with SLI using an
elicitation task. They reported that children with SLI showed a rate of agreement errors of
26.5% with simple subjects and 36.3% with complex subjects. Franck et al, reported that
when the task was administered to 5-year-old TD children, error rates were 15% for simple
subjects and 23.3% for complex subjects. There was a tendency to produce fewer errors with
singular head nouns than plurals. However, Paradis and Crago (2001) reported that FS
children with SLI showed accurate subject verb agreement and did not differ from TD FS
children. There was no evidence for IS or SS children with SLI available for this construction.
2.2.8. Prepositions
Cipriani et al. (1998) followed the language development of an IS child with SLI for 6 years.
They used language sample analyses to investigate the use of prepositions in obligatory
contexts. Researchers reported that prepositions were extremely affected in the language of
24
this child, characterized by a high rate of omission (>80%) up to age 8. However, this is the
only study reporting difficulties with prepositions among the three languages, and it had only
one subject. Therefore, these results should be interpreted with caution.
2.3. Summary of grammatical manifestation of SLI in Italian, French and Spanish.
Tables 3, 4, and 5 summarize the findings for each language group. Italian speaking children
with SLI evidenced difficulties with third person plural verb inflections, auxiliary avere and
essere, definite and indefinite articles, direct and indirect object clitics, and reflexive clitics. In
addition to these findings, Bortolini, Caselli, Deevy and Leonard (2002) demonstrated the
utility of a composite of articles, clitics and third person plural inflections to differentiate
Italian-speaking children with SLI from TD children. They reported sensitivity (ability to
detect the language disorder when it was truly present) for this composite index of 93.3% and
specificity (ability to exclude the language disorder when it was truly not present) of 93.3 %.
French-speaking children with SLI showed difficulties with direct object clitic pronouns and
future and past tense verbs. Spanish-speaking children with SLI presented with difficulties in
definite and indefinite articles, direct object clitic pronouns, plural inflections, and adjective
agreement.
Although the research findings are not completely parallel across languages, some
similarities are evident. Difficulties with clitic pronouns are a common characteristic of
children with SLI in the Romance languages surveyed in this review, although further
research is needed to extend the findings regarding this structure. Article difficulties were also
evidenced in Italian and Spanish, but were not found in French. Further investigation is
25
needed to establish the source of this difference. Other difficulties with grammatical
structures that were not parallel across languages, including auxiliaries, number agreement,
and adjective agreement, need further research as well, as they are potential areas for
elaboration.
26
Table 3. Grammatical Errors in IS Children with SLI
ITALIAN
Investigators Sample Size Age Elicitation method Problem Structures
Leonard,
Sabbadini,
Leonard, and
Volterra (1987)
8 SLI English
8 SLI Italian
3;6 to 6;9
4;1 to 6;11
Spontaneous
language sample
–Interaction with
clinician
Third person plural
verb inflections
Leonard,
Sabbadini,
Volterra, and
Leonard (1988)
8 SLI English
8 SLI Italian
3;6 to 6;9
4;1 to 6;11
Spontaneous
language sample
–Interaction with
clinician
Definite and indefinite
articles and clitic
object pronouns
Leonard,Bortolini,
Caselli, and
Sabbadini (1993)
15 SLI
15 TD-MLU
4;0 to 6;0
2;6 to 3;6
Picture description
task
Definite articles
Bortolini, Caselli
and Leonard
(1997)
12 SLI
12 TD-MLU
12 TD-AGE
4;1 to 7;0
2;6 to 4;0
3;11 to 7;0
Elicitation task Singular definite
articles and third
person plural verb
inflections
25 SLI
25 TD-MLU
25 TD-AGE
4;0 to 7;0
2;6 to 4;0
3;11 to 7;0
Spontaneous
language sample
from picture
description tasks
Auxiliaries avere and
essere forms, direct
and indirect object,
reflexive and third
person plural inflect
Leonard and
Bortolini (1998)
12 SLI
12 TD-MLU
Spontaneous
language sample
Difficulties with
definite articles
Botarri, Cipriani,
Chilosi and
Pfanner (1998)
11 SLI 4;3 to 10;7 Spontaneous
language sample-
free play
Articles
Cipriani, Botarri,
Chilosi and
Pfanner (1998)
1 SLI Followed
from 6;2
to 13;5
Spontaneous
language in free
play, conversation
and book reading
Clitic pronouns,
definite and indefinite
articles, and
prepositions
Botarri, Cipriani,
Chilosi, and
Pfanner (2001)
11 SLI
2 TD
Aphasia 1
4;2 to 10;7
1;7
3;4
Spontaneous
language samples
Articles
Bortolini, Caselli,
Deevy and
Leonard (2002)
12 SLI
12 TD-AGE
4;1 to 7;0
3;11 to 7;0
Elicitation task Definite articles,
clitics and third person
plural inflectionNote: SLI: Children with specific language impairment; TD: Typically developing children; TD-MLU: Typically
developing children matched on MLU; TD-AGE: Typically developing children matched on age
27
Table 4. Grammatical Errors in FS Children with SLI
FRENCH
Investigators Sample Size Age Elicitation method Problem Structures
Le Normand,
Leonard, and
McGregor (1993)
8 SLI
8 TD
4;0 to 6;0
3;0 to3;6
Spontaneous
language using
toys, objects, and
pictures
No difficulties with
articles
Jakubowicz, Nash,
Rigaut, and Gérard
(1998)
13 SLI
20 TD
5;7 to 13;0
5;6 to 5;11
Elicitation task Direct objects, subject
and reflexive pronouns
No difficulties with
definite articles
Jakubowicz and
Nash (2001)
28 SLI
12 TD -3
12 TD -4
12 TD -6
5;7 to 13;0
3 yr old
4 yr old
6 yr old
Sentence
completion task
Past tense productions
Paradis and Crago
(2001)
7 SLI
10 TD-Age
10ND-MLU
7 yr old
7 yr old
3 yr old
Spontaneous
language during
play session
Past and future tense
No difficulties with
subject-verb number
agreement
Hamann, Ohayon,
Dubé,
Frauenfelder,
Rizzi, Starke and
Zesiger (2003)
11 SLI 3;10 to 7;11 Spontaneous
language (not
specific method
detailed)
Object clitic pronouns
Franck, Cronel-
Ohayon, Chillier,
Frauenfelder,
Hamman, Rizzi
and Zesiger (2004)
8 SLI
60 TD
5;4 to 9;4
4;11 to 9;5
Sentence
completion task
Subject-verb number
agreement
Grüter (2005) 6 SLI
12 TD
6;6 to 9;2
6;2 to 7;1
Elicitation task Object clitic pronouns
Note: SLI: Children with specific language impairment; TD: Typically developing children;
TD-MLU: Typically developing children matched on MLU; TD-AGE: Typically developing
children matched on age
28
Table 5. Grammatical Errors in SS Children with SLI
SPANISH
Investigator Number of
subjects
Age Elicitation
method
Main Findings
Restrepo and
Gutierrez-Clellen
(2001)
15 SLI
15 TD-AGE
5;9 (SD 0;8)
6;1 (SD 0;7)
Language
samples
(picture
description,
interview and
story retelling)
Articles
Anderson and
Souto (2005)
11 SLI
11 TD-AGE
4;3 to 5;4
4;3 to 5;4
Language
samples (Picture
description, story
retelling, play
interaction) and
elicitation task
Articles
De la Mora,
Paradis,
Grinstead, Flores
and Sanchez
(2004)
10 SLI
10 TD-
MLU
10 TD-AGE
5;3
3;9
5;0
Elicitation task Direct object clitics
Jacobson and
Schwartz (2002)
10 SLI
10 TD
4;2 to 5;4
4;1 to 5;0
Elicitation task Direct object clitic
pronouns
Bedore and
Leonard (2001)
15 SLI
15 TD-MLU
15 TD-AGE
3;11 to 5;6
2;4 to 3;1
4;0 to 5;6
Elicitation task Definite and indefinite
articles, direct object
clitics, noun plurals, and
adjective agreement
Bedore and
Leonard (2005)
15 SLI
15 TD-MLU
15 TD-AGE
3;11 to 5;6
2;4 to 3;1
4;0 to 5;6
Language
samples during
play
Definite articles, direct
object clitics, and plural
nouns
Note: SLI: Children with specific language impairment; TD: Typically developing children; TD-MLU: Typically
developing children matched on MLU; TD-AGE: Typically developing children matched on age
2.4. Further research in Spanish-speaking children with SLI
One of the purposes of this chapter was to examine the research in Italian and French in order
to look for potential areas of interest for further research on Spanish SLI. Spanish research on
SLI can benefit from Italian and French investigations in two ways. First, structures that have
been found to be problematic for FS and IS children could have implications for Spanish,
29
given that there may be similarities across languages in specific structures. Second, some
approaches used in Italian and French research can be followed when studying similar
grammatical structures in Spanish.
Grammatical structures that have been found to be problematic for IS and FS children
can be investigated in more depth in Spanish. For example, the study of clitic pronouns is a
potential area for additional research in Spanish. There is evidence that SS children have
difficulties with direct object clitic pronouns, however, the clitic system is far more complex
than direct objects only. Italian and French researchers have extended their investigations of
clitic pronouns to include indirect objects, reflexive, and subject clitics. Some studies on
Italian have also investigated the contexts where clitic pronouns are more prone to be omitted.
Therefore, research on clitic pronouns in Spanish should be oriented towards investigating
direct and indirect objects, as well as reflexive pronouns. As discussed above, it is also
possible that spontaneous or elicited tasks differ in the rates of clitic omission; therefore, both
types of task should be used to examine clitic pronouns.
Research in Italian and French has investigated monolingual speaking children with
SLI. In Spanish, some of the studies have been conducted with Spanish-speaking children
learning a second language. Although it is important to study second language learners, it is
also important to collect data on monolingual Spanish-speaking children with SLI. The true
characteristics of Spanish-speaking children with SLI would be revealed only when studying
monolingual children because some bilingual children may show influences from the second
language being learned or may be losing their first language.
30
Another approach that the Italian research has followed is to search for a composite
of grammatical clinical markers. Group means may not truly characterize individuals with
SLI. Therefore, research on the utility of grammatical markers to differentiate TD children
from children with SLI is very important in the clinical domain. Further research in Spanish
should be oriented toward finding a composite index of grammatical structures that can be
used as a diagnostic tool to reliably identify children with SLI.
In summary, research on Italian and French suggests that further research on Spanish-
speaking children with SLI should focus on extending the research on clitic pronouns as well
as other errors. This research should be conducted on monolingual children and should
include both spontaneous and elicited language analyses, as the previous studies have done. In
addition, grammatical markers should be investigated to find a diagnostic clinical tool for the
identification of Spanish-speaking children with SLI. Structures that have been found to be
problematic for SS children with SLI, such as articles, adjectives, plurals, and clitic pronouns,
should also be investigated during normal development to establish acquisition milestones.
These observations have guided the examination of the acquisition of the specific
morphosyntactic structures selected for investigation in SS children, which is described in
Chapter 4.
31
3. LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT IN MONOLINGUAL AND BILINGUAL
CHILDREN
This chapter presents the reader with information on assessment that is relevant to Spanish
monolingual children and Spanish-English bilingual children. Although there is a vast amount
of information on language assessment, the focus of this chapter is on the collection of data
specifically related to morphosyntax.
In the field of speech-language pathology, language assessment is a procedure that
involves the collection and analysis of data to describe the language skills of a child and to
identify whether the child is following typical development patterns or whether he/she
presents with a language disorder. The definition of language disorders proposed by Paul
(2001) states that children with language disorders present with a “significant deficit in
learning to talk, understand, or use any aspect of language appropriately, relative to both
environmental and norm-referenced expectations for children of similar developmental level
(p. 3)”. Following this definition, SLPs need to identify whether a “language deficit” exists
using environmental and normative standards. Environmental standards refer to the
identification of language deficits by those familiar with the child, including parents and
caregivers as a primary source of information (Paul, 2001). Normative standards refer to the
identification of language deficits by comparing the language skills of a child to the language
skills of other children with a similar developmental pattern.
During language assessment, SLPs use a variety of methods to collect language data.
The assessment techniques that the SLP chooses will depend mostly on the type of
information that is of interest to each specific case. Paul (2001) described four basic types of
32
techniques for the assessment of language skills in children. These techniques differ in the
types of data they provide. Norm-referenced tests are administered to obtain information
about how a child performs in a specific language task compared to other children of the same
age. Criterion referenced tests are also used to determine the child’s level of performance on a
specific language task but compared to a specific set standard. Developmental scales are used
to collect information on a specific skill in a particular developmental period. These scales
often provide an estimation of age-equivalent performance on a particular task. Observations
are used to describe the performance of a child on a specific aspect of language, providing a
detailed description of a language behavior. Criterion-referenced tests, developmental scales,
and observations are mainly used to describe the language skills of a child. In contrast, norm-
referenced tests are used to make specific comparisons of language skills across children. It is
highly recommended to use a combination of these methods when assessing language. Each
method provides a different perspective on the language skills of the child and this
information is necessary to make an adequate diagnosis of language status and to develop a
treatment plan.
Norm-referenced language tests provide SLPs with normative standards to make
comparisons of language skills. The SLP uses this normative information to identify whether a
child is performing within, below, or above the language expectations for his/her
chronological age. However, the question remains as to how far below the norm a child has to
perform to be considered to have a language disorder. Tomblin, Records, and Zhang (1996)
suggested the use of a cutoff score of 1.25 standard deviations below the mean on at least two
of five norm-referenced composite scores as an identification criterion for a language disorder.
33
This criterion has also been used in the identification of Spanish-speaking children with SLI
(Bedore & Leonard, 2001, 2005).
With respect to environmental standards, parents appear to be a reliable source of
valuable information in the identification of children with language disorders, at least during
early development. Parental reports such as the MacArthur-Bates Communicative
Developmental Inventories (Fenson, Dale, Reznick, Thal, Bates, Hartung, Pethick & Reilly,
1993) and the Language Developmental Survey (Rescorla, 1993) are valid measures of
vocabulary used to identify toddlers with language disorders. Similarly, The Language Use
Inventory for Young Children(O’Neill, 2007), a parental report of pragmatic language, has
also been shown to be a valid measure for identifying children with language disorders.
Parental reports also seem to be reliable and valid tools for identifying preschool age
Spanish-speaking children with language disorders. Restrepo (1998) developed a parent
questionnaire examining potential speech and language problems for Spanish-speaking
children. This parental report discriminated SS children with SLI from typically developing
children with a sensitivity of 73.91% and a specificity of 95.65%. Therefore, the use of
parental reports seems to be a valuable practice when assessing language in all populations,
including Spanish-speaking children.
The language assessment principles described above apply to both monolingual and
bilingual children. However, the assessment of bilingual children poses additional challenges.
The question of whether language development in bilingual children resembles the language
development of monolingual children has been a topic of considerable recent interest, as it is
specifically related to language assessment. Some evidence suggests that the development of
34
each of the languages of the bilingual children follows a very similar pattern to the language
development of monolingual children (Genesee, Paradis & Crago, 2004). These findings have
been supported for Spanish-English bilingual children as well (Bedore, 2004). However,
further research is needed to confirm these findings. This topic has a very important
implication for the language assessment of bilingual children, indicating that the information
collected in each of the languages might be compared to monolingual standards. Nevertheless,
disagreement still exists on this issue (Kester & Peña, 2002).
Although there is not much discussion needed about the definition of monolingualism, the
term bilingualism can be interpreted in various ways. There are a variety of types of
bilingualism reported in the literature, but the two main categories that would be expected to
have a significant impact on assessment are simultaneous versus sequential bilingualism.
Simultaneous bilingualism occurs when a child is exposed to two languages from birth and,
therefore, acquires the two languages simultaneously (Genesee et al. 2004). Sequential
bilingualism occurs when the child is exposed to only one language from birth and exposure
to a second language occurs later on during development (Hoff, 2005). Genesee et al. (2004)
have suggested using the generic term “dual language learners” to describe both groups of
bilinguals.
CASLPA’s position statement regarding SLPs working in multicultural contexts
(Crago & Westernoff, 1997) and specifically the assessment of bilingual children states:
Appropriate assessment implies that: (a) the identification of disorders
is optimally made in the first language (L1), combined with
assessment in the second language (L2); (b) the assessment is
culturally and linguistically appropriate; (c) the assessment is ongoing;
(d) the assessment process is naturalistic, holistic, and includes the use
of non standardised approaches; (e) the assessment considers societal
35
factors that may be impeding language proficiency (e.g., first language loss, biased
educational practices, premorbid language mastery); and, (f) the
reports of the assessment are descriptive (p.3).
CASLPA recommendations, which stem from a more theoretical view of bilingualism,
are suggested as the gold standard in the assessment of bilingual children. Nevertheless,
research evidence is needed to fully support them. These recommendations pose some very
interesting questions, such as what could be considered a culturally and linguistically
appropriate assessment. There has been a lot of debate regarding standardized assessment for
Spanish-English bilingual children (e.g., Simon-Cerejido & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2007). In
general, it has been concluded that no culturally and linguistically appropriate standardized
assessment for Spanish-English bilingual children is currently available. Therefore, the main
recommendation regarding assessment in culturally and linguistically diverse populations is to
use developmental measures obtained through the analysis of spontaneous language (ASHA,
1985, Gutierrez-Clellen et al., 2000; Restrepo & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2004).
Developmental language measures are obtained from spontaneous language samples
and provide information about the stage of language development of a child. Measures such
as mean length of utterance, subordination index and grammatical errors per T-units are
suggested measures to evaluate narrative development (Paul, 2001). The collection of
spontaneous production data has been recognized as an extremely useful method to investigate
morphological development across languages (Demuth, 1996). Different methods such as
interviews, picture description, story retelling, and free play, among others, have been used to
elicit language samples (Gazella & Stockman, 2003; Gutierrez-Clellen & Hofstetter, 1994;
Southwood & Russell, 2004; Wagner, Nettelbladt, Sahlen, & Nilholm, 2002). Story retelling
36
has been found to elicit more complex stories than the other techniques in English-speaking
children (Gazella & Stockman, 2003; Wagner et al., 2002).
Research on elicitation techniques in Spanish speaking children is very limited,
however, a pilot study conducted by Restrepo, Youngs, and Castilla (2005) found that a story
retelling task led to more grammatical errors than either picture description or interview tasks.
In addition, Restrepo and Castilla (2007) suggested that story retelling is a culturally
appropriate task for Spanish-speaking children. Furthermore, Sebastian and Slobin (1994)
suggested that preschool Spanish-speaking children’s narratives contained appropriate use of
aspectual distinctions, simple chaining connectors, word order variation, clitic object
pronouns, and verbs of motion with person and number marking.
In summary, SLPs are required to collect data that represent the language status of a
child and that are then compared to normative and environmental standards in order to
adequately identify children with language disorders. Bilingual children should be assessed in
both their first and second languages with culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment
tools that identify the salient characteristics of the language being evaluated. There is a
paucity of normative information for SS monolingual and bilingual children. The analysis of
language samples has been suggested as an alternative when assessing culturally and linguistic
diverse populations. The use of parental report seems to be a good indicator of potential
language disorders in children. Further research is needed to provide normative standards for
SS children.
37
4. SPANISH LANGUAGE ACQUISTION
This chapter provides the reader with information on the acquisition of Spanish. Section one
will cover a grammatical overview of Spanish with an emphasis on the grammatical structures
of interest in this study. Section two will present research on the acquisition of articles, clitic
pronouns, plurals, and adjectives. The last section will present information on developmental
language measures in Spanish-speaking children.
4.1 Spanish grammatical structures overview
Spanish is the official language of Spain and most Latin American countries. Spanish
also has an influential role in English speaking countries such as the United States, where
Hispanics are currently the second largest minority group (the terms Latin American, Latino
and Hispanic are used interchangeably through this paper). The Spanish language is known
for its rich morphology. Nouns, adjectives, articles, subject and object pronouns are inflected
for gender and number. Verbs are inflected for person, tense, mood, and voice. Person
inflection includes first person (the speaker), second person (the one spoken to), and third
person (the one spoken about). Tense inflections are divided into two groups: simple tenses,
which include present, future, imperfect and past tense, and compound tenses consisting of
present perfect, future perfect and past perfect. There are four mood conjugations in Spanish:
indicative (used for factual statements and positive beliefs), subjunctive (used to express
emotion, commands, wishes, and judgments), conditional (used when the realization of an
event depends on a certain condition), and imperative (used to express direct commands,
38
requests, and prohibitions). Voice inflection consists of active and passive voices. Because
the verb system is highly inflected, Spanish is a pro-drop language, which means that subject
pronouns are optional because the information about the subject is always marked in the verb.
Spanish canonical order is subject-verb-object, but word order can vary to reflect patterns of
information structure (old/new, topic/focus).
4.1.1 Noun phrase agreement. In Spanish, all elements of the noun phrase (determiners,
nouns, and adjectives) must agree in both number and gender. In Spanish, nouns have
grammatical gender (feminine/masculine). In general, feminine grammatical gender is
assigned to nouns ending in /a/ and to semantically feminine nouns (e.g., mesa/table;
niña/girl). Masculine grammatical gender is assigned to nouns ending in /o/ and to
semantically masculine nouns (e.g., cielo/sky; profesor/male teacher). There are various
exceptions to this rule, for example, the word día/day ends in /a/, but has a masculine gender.
Similarly, the word mano/hand ends in /o/ but has a feminine gender.
Articles are divided into definite and indefinite articles. Definite articles are used when
referring to a particular member of a group, and indefinite articles are used when referring to
any member of a group. Definite and indefinite articles must agree with the noun in number
and gender. See Table 6 for a list of articles in Spanish. In narratives, as is the case in English,
indefinite articles are used when introducing characters to the story and, once they are
introduced, definite articles are used to make reference to the specific characters.
39
Table 6. Spanish Definite and Indefinite Articles
Articles Feminine
Singular
Feminine
Plural
Masculine
Singular
Masculine
Plural
Definite la las lo los
Indefinite una unas un unos
Adjective use in Spanish is very similar to adjective use in English, with two
exceptions. First, unlike English, adjectives in Spanish are usually placed after the noun (eg.
La casa roja/ the house-red; el color verde/the color-green). Second, adjectives must agree
with the noun they are modifying in number and person. For example, if modifying the word
niña/girl (feminine/singular) the adjective must follow the same pattern and inflect with the
feminine singular ending: bonita/beautiful. If modifying the word niños/boys
(masculine/plural), the adjective must agree with the noun and inflect with the ending for
masculine plural: bonitos/beautiful.
There are two grammatical numbers in Spanish: singular and plural. Plural number is
marked by adding /s/ to nouns and adjectives when they end in vowels and /es/ when they end
in consonants (e.g., silla/chair, sillas/chairs; árbol/tree, árboles/trees). Some words are
grammatically plural (e.g., pantalones/pants, tijeras/scissors) but in some dialects they are
taken to be semantically singular, hence singular forms are used interchangeably (pantalón,
tijera).
4.1.2 Clitic pronouns. In Spanish, object pronouns are clitics, which means that they are free
morphemes that must occur adjacent to the verb. They can be positioned before (preclitic) or
after (enclitic) the verb. The Spanish object pronoun system is very rich because object
pronouns must agree with the nouns they replace in number and gender. See Table 7 for a list
40
of clitic object pronouns in Spanish. In addition, object pronouns are related to verbs as
direct or indirect objects; clitics pronouns le and les are indirect objects, also known as
datives.
The “se” pronoun, usually known as reflexive, is a clitic pronoun with a more complex
system of use. There are at least four types of “se” pronouns: reflexive, pseudo-reflexive,
spurious, and impersonal. In Spanish, the use of the reflexive clitic pronouns “se” as direct
object is obligatory when the subject (the doer of the action) is also receiving the action
(object) (e.g., Me bañe/I bathed myself; Se baño/ He bathed himself). The “se” pronoun can
also act as a pseudo-reflexive pronoun when used with verbs that require the “se” pronoun
(pronominal verbs), but there is no reflexivity. For example, the verb “arrepentirse/to regret”
obligatorily requires the “se” pronoun, although the action of regret is not reflexive. The
spurious “se” pronoun is used instead of the dative “le” to avoid the awkward combination (le-
lo) in the same sentence. For example, the “se” pronoun in the sentence “se lo da” is not a true
reflexive and, in fact, it is replacing the use of “le lo da”. The impersonal “se” is used when
there is not a specific doer of the action, and it is equivalent to the English “one”. For
example, in the sentence “se habla ingles/English is spoken” there is no reference to who
speaks English.
Table 7. Spanish Clitic Pronouns
Person Singular Plural
1st
me Nos
2nd
te Os
3rd
Masculine lo los
3rd
Feminine la las
3rd
Dative le Les
3rd
Reflexive se Se
41
4.2 Research on Spanish Morphosyntactic Acquisition
Most of the studies that have investigated Spanish morphosyntactic development have
focused on the acquisition of verb morphology (e.g., Kernan & Blount, 1966; Kvaal,
Shipstead-Cox, Nevitt, Hodson, & Laurner, 1988). This might have occurred because of the
challenges that the complex morphological verb system may present for child language
acquisition. However, as discussed previously, research suggests that Spanish-speaking
children with SLI have few problems with the verb system as compared to the difficulties they
show with articles, plurals, adjectives, and object clitic pronouns (Bedore & Leonard, 2001,
2005). Nevertheless, research on the normal acquisition of these specific grammatical
structures remains limited.
Some researchers have reported that SS TD children continue to make grammatical
errors in their speech up to the age of five (Brisk, 1982; Cohen, 1976). Brisk (1982)
investigated the syntactic development of 7 five-year old Spanish-speaking children born in
New Mexico using structured interviews to elicit language samples. She reported that,
although nouns, adjectives, and articles were frequently used in the speech of all children,
agreement errors between articles and nouns were still present at age five. However, these
children were born in New Mexico; it is not clear whether the children spoke Spanish only or
were Spanish-English bilinguals. Similarly, Cohen (1976) studied 90 five-year old SS children
children. He examined the grammatical errors that children produced in Spanish stories and
reported that 5-year old children made grammatical errors on articles and pronouns, among
other error types. However, errors in both of the previous studies might be explained by
language loss potential manifestations. Language loss occurs when a first language is partially
42
lost because a second language is being used more frequently. In this case, these children
may have experienced Spanish language loss because English was being introduced at school.
One of the common patterns seen in Spanish speaking children who are learning a second
language and experiencing language loss is agreement errors on articles and object pronouns
(Anderson, 2004).
4.2.1 Articles
Only limited information is available on the acquisition of articles in SS children. Researchers
have suggested that SS children start producing articles as early as 20 months (Hernandez-
Piña, 1984; Lopez-Ornat, 1997; Montes, 1974). For example, Montes (1974) investigated
Spanish language development in four Colombian children in a longitudinal study using
spontaneous language samples. He reported that definite articles began to appear between 20
and 26 months of age, and indefinite articles between 25 and 34 months. Maez (1984)
reported that 24 month old children produced definite and indefinite singular articles with
some occasional errors on gender agreement, but did not produce plural articles. Lopez-Ornat
(1997) studied the language corpus of a monolingual Spanish-speaking child and found that
she produced articles and nouns marked for gender agreement at about the age of 26 months.
In general, researchers have concluded that gender agreement between nouns and articles is
established by age 3 or 4 (Hernandez-Piña, 1984; Montrul, 2004: Perez-Pereira, 1991).
However, no information is available on the acquisition of plural articles. Moreover, with the
exception of Montes (1974), no information on the differences between the acquisition of
definite and indefinite articles is available in current research studies.
43
4.2.2 Object Clitic Pronouns
Few studies describe the acquisition of Spanish object clitic pronouns. Gonzalez (1978)
reported that children begin to use direct object pronouns as early as two years of age. Shum,
Conde and Diaz (1992) studied the pronoun acquisition of three children from 2 to 3;6 years.
They reported that children at 3;6 years of age used third person object clitic pronouns with
some errors of omission, addition and agreement. Anderson (1998) studied personal pronoun
use by 40 monolingual Puerto Rican Spanish children between the ages of 2 and 4. She found
that 27 of the 40 children she studied had mastered the personal pronoun system; however, the
age range in acquiring these pronouns was not reported. The error most frequently found in
this study was omission of clitic pronouns. Finally, Merino (1992) reported that gender
agreement of direct object pronouns was acquired between 5 and 7 years, but did not provide
research evidence to support this claim. No information on number agreement development
and differences between direct and indirect object pronouns was available from these research
studies.
4.2.3 Noun-Adjective agreement.
Gonzalez (1978) is the only researcher to date to examine agreement between articles, nouns,
and adjectives in Spanish. He investigated morphosyntactic acquisition in 23 Spanish-
speaking children in Texas from age 2 to 5 using a cross-sectional design study. Although
children had contact with a second language (English), Gonzalez reported that these children
came from a community with very good language maintenance. He reported that gender and
number inflection on articles, nouns, and adjectives was established by age 3;6.
44
4.2.4 Plural inflection.
With respect to the acquisition of plurals, researchers have reported differences between
the development of plurals with the allomorphs /s/ and /es/. For example, Kernan and Blount
(1966) used an elicitation task based on nonsense words to investigate Spanish grammatical
acquisition by Mexican children. They studied 92 children from 5 to 12 years of age and
reported that the children did not have difficulties with the formation of plurals requiring the
addition of the allomorph /s/; however, children up to 12 years old presented difficulties with
the plural task requiring the addition of /es/. These data suggest that children acquire plural for
nouns ending in vowels earlier than for nouns ending in consonants.
Similarly, Perez-Pereira (1988) studied 109 Spanish-speaking children between the
ages of 3 and 6 years who were born in Spain. He used a nonsense word task adapted from
Kernan and Blount (1966), as well as a real word task. Perez-Pereira found that, in general, all
children were more accurate with the allomorphs /s/ than with /es/ in both real and artificial
words. More specifically, the plural morpheme with the allomorph /es/ was found to be more
accurately used at age 4 than at age 3. Maez (1984) also found support for this pattern of
acquisition. He studied the spontaneous speech of three children from 18 to 24 months who
spoke Spanish as a first language but had some limited contact with English (e.g., watched TV
in English). He reported that the children produced nouns with the allomorph /s/ at 24 months
of age, but did not produce any plural nouns with allomorph /es/. In general, the data suggest
that plural marking emerges first with the allomorph /s/, shortly followed by the allomorph
/es/. Merino (1992) suggested that children seem to have mastered both plural forms by age 4,
but no empirical evidence was provided to support this claim.
45
4.2.5 Summary of acquisition of Spanish grammatical structures
Table 8 presents a summary of the information on the acquisition of grammatical
structures based on the reviewed studies.
Table 8. Acquisition of Grammatical Structures
Structure 3 years old 4 years old 5 years old
Plurals no errors on
allomorph /s/
Acquired Acquired
Articles errors on definite and
indefinite articles
Acquired Acquired
Adjectives errors on gender and
number agreement
Acquired Acquired
Clitic pronouns errors on object clitic
pronouns
errors on object clitic
pronouns
errors on object clitic
pronouns
4.3 Research on developmental measures
Developmental measures such as number of Terminable Units (T-unit), where a T-unit
is a main clause plus its subordinated clauses (Hunt, 1965), mean length of T-units (MLTU),
number of grammatical errors per T-unit, and subordination index, that is the number of
complex sentences divided by total number of T-Units, have been shown to be sensitive to
changes in language development (Paul, 2001). Research on SS children is very limited in
this area, but researchers Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) studied 77 SS children and
found developmental differences among 5-, 6-, and 8-year old children in MLTU and
subordination index. They reported mean MLTU values of 6.5 (SD=.9) for the 5-year old
group, 6.9 (SD=1.1) for the 6-year old group, and 7.3 (SD=1.2) for the 8-year old group.
46
Additionally, they reported mean values for subordination index for the three groups: 1.11
(SD=.13) for the 5-year old group, 1.18 (SD=.11) for 6-year old group and 1.23 (SD=.13) for
8-year old group. In contrast, Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) found no significant
differences in number of T-units among the three groups. They reported a mean value for
number of T-units of 24.3 (SD=19.5) for the 5-year old group.
With respect to typical versus atypical development, Restrepo (1998) studied two
groups of five-year old children with typical development (n=31) and with SLI (n=31) and
found that MLTU and number of grammatical errors per T-unit discriminated children with
typical language from children with language impairments. She reported a MLTU value of 5.6
and a number of grammatical errors per T-unit value of 0.09 for the typically developing
children. However, the results from these studies should be interpreted with some caution
because the children had exposure to and were learning a second language and this could have
had an impact on their first language skills. No information is available on MLTU,
subordination index, or grammatical errors per T-unit in monolingual Spanish-speaking
children from that study.
Further information is needed to characterize number of T-units, MLTU, grammatical
errors per T-unit, and subordination index in normally developing SS children. Preliminary
research provides estimated mean values for age groups (see Table 9), but further research is
needed to confirm these estimates. Story retelling seems to be a reliable task to collect
complex narratives permitting the examination number of T-units, MLTU, grammatical errors
per T-unit, and subordination index in SS children.
47
Table 9. Means and Standard Deviations (in parentheses) for Developmental Language
Measures
Gutierrez-Clellen &
Hofstetter (1994) (Age
5;0)
Restrepo (1998)
(Age 6;2)
Simon-Cereijido &
Gutierrez-Clellen (2007)
(Age 4;6)
NU-TU 24.30 (19.50) Not reported Not reported
MLTU 6.50 (.90) 5.60 (.80) 5.70 (1.00)
SUB-I 1.11 (.13) Not reported Not reported
GRE-TU Not reported 0.09 (.05) 0.17 (.04)
48
5. PURPOSE AND QUESTIONS
Information on language acquisition and developmental language measures in
monolingual Spanish-speaking children continues to be limited. Although some limited data
on developmental measures have been provided for Spanish-speaking children who are
acquiring English as a second language, research on monolingual children is urgently needed.
Similarly, there is an enormous information gap with respect to monolingual Spanish language
acquisition that is evident when compared to information on other languages, specifically
English. This paucity of information on language acquisition and developmental measures
presents a challenge for professionals who work in Spanish environments, particularly speech-
language pathologists, teachers, and researchers interested in child language.
The purpose of this study was to examine morphosyntactic language development
among 3-, 4-, and 5-year old monolingual SS children using both a story retelling and an
elicitation task. Four developmental language measures were used for this purpose: number of
T-units, MLTU, grammatical errors per T-unit and subordination index. In addition, this
study aimed to examine the production of articles, adjectives, plurals, and clitic object
pronouns by SS monolingual children using both of the tasks.
This study aimed to answer two specific questions:
a. What are the typical values for number of T-units, mean length of T-units in words,
subordination index, and number of grammatical errors per T-unit measures among 3-,
4-, and 5-year old monolingual SS children?
b. How can we characterize the production of clitic object pronouns, articles, plurals and
adjectives by SS monolingual children at ages 3, 4 and 5?
49
The hypotheses for the developmental language measures and for the pattern of production
of articles, adjectives, plurals, and clitic object pronouns were based on the data available for
SS children as presented in chapter 4, as follows:
a. The mean value for number of T-units for the 5-year old group will be within 0.5 SD
of that reported in Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) (24.3, SD=19.5).
b. The mean value for mean length of T-units in words for the 5-year old group will be
within 0.5 SD of that reported in Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) (6.5, SD=.9).
c. The mean value for subordination index for the 5-year old group will be within 0.5 SD
of that reported in Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) (1.1 , SD=.13).
d. The mean value for grammatical errors per T-unit for the 5-year old group will be
within 0.5 SD of that reported in Restrepo (1998) (0.09, SD=.05).
e. Five-year old children’s performance on the elicitation task for articles, plurals,
adjectives and clitic pronouns will resemble adult performance in the same tasks.
50
6. METHOD
This section presents the specific details regarding the methodology employed in this
investigation. Section one (6.1) presents the description of the participants. Section two (6.2)
describes the measures used to collect the data. Section three (6.3) describes the procedures
that were followed during the data collection. Section four (6.4) presents the results of the
reliability analysis.
With respect to the sampling procedure, the present study utilized a normative
developmental cross-sectional design. Two different methodological approaches could have
been taken when deciding on the sampling technique for this type of study: truncated
normative samples and normal normative samples (Ukrainetz, 1996). In truncated normative
samples, children with language problems and other special needs are intentionally excluded
form the sample. In normal normative samples, all children, regardless of language status, are
included in the sample to be able to represent the full range of abilities that are expected to
exist in the population that the sample represents (Ukrainetz, 1996). This study follows a
normal normative sampling methodological technique to be able to describe the language
performance of all children, including children with potential language disorders whose
performance on the language test could be represented in the low extreme of the normal
distribution.
51
6.1 Participants
This section provides information about the participants in the study. There were two sets of
participants, a large group of child participants and a small group of adult participants whose
data served as a point of comparison for the acquisition of the structures of interest by the
children. The child participants were 115 monolingual SS children (55 boys and 60 girls)
enrolled in schools in Cali, Colombia. Children were included in the study if their
chronological age was three, four, or five years (+ or – 3 months). Children were grouped into
three age categories: three year olds (n=39, mean age= 35.7 months, SD= 1.7, 16 boys and 23
girls), four year olds (n=40, mean age=47.8, SD= 1.9, 17 boys and 23 girls) and five year olds
(n=36, mean age=59.2, SD= 1.8, 22 boys and 14 girls). Figure 1 illustrates the means and
standard deviations for the chronological age in months of the three groups of children.
Figure 1. Chronological Age Box Plot
Age Groups
52
Children were recruited from nine schools in the city of Cali. The number of
children per school varied according to the number of children in the age groups required.
This variability is shown in Figure 2. The data for the study were collected from private
schools, which is the type of school most prevalent in Colombia. This means that most
parents pay for the education of their children. School fees differ according to the socio
economic status of the area where the school is located. Therefore, school affiliation was used
to establish socio-economic status in all but one school (MF). Although MF is a private
school, it receives funding from the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar; (ICBF,
Colombian Institute for Family Well-Being), which provides services to low-income families.
For this specific school, student’s records were used to establish SES. Level one is the lowest
level and six is the highest. Schools from SEL 1 were not included in this study because it
represents extreme poverty. Poverty has an effect on a variety of skill including cognitive,
emotional, behavioral, and language development of children. Including these children in the
sample could have had a potential confound on the language measures (Thomas-Presswood &
Presswood, 2008). In addition, visiting schools in this SEL was considered an unsafe practice
for the investigator. Schools from SEL 6 were not included in the study because they are
generally bilingual schools. Figure 3 illustrates the socio economic status (SES) of the
children in this study.
53
Figure 2. Number of Children per School- Independent of SES
Figure 3. Percentage of Children per SES
54
All children included in the study passed an audiometric hearing screening test using a
portable audiometer Inter Acoustic AD25. Children had their hearing screened at 30 dB for
each ear at test frequencies of 1000, 2000, and 4000 HZ. The pass/fail criterion was the failure
to respond to any test presentation in either ear at 30dB (Northern & Downs, 2002). Two
children failed the screening test and were therefore not included in the study. Their parents
were contacted to inform them about the results of the screening. One of the parents reported
that they knew their child had a middle ear infection. The other child was a 2;9 month old
child who did not seem to follow the directions of the test appropriately. Parents of this child
were told to repeat the hearing screening in three months.
A group of 10 adult participants was recruited to provide information on adult
performance on the elicitation task. The adult group consisted of six monolingual-Spanish
speaking females and four males from Colombia. Participants were selected to match the SES
of the children investigated and included four participants from SES level 3, three participants
from SES level 4, and three participants from SES level 5. SES level was determined by the
neighborhood were they lived. Ages of the adult participants ranged between 26 and 50 years.
The adult data were collected in order to obtain a baseline against which child performance
could be compared to measure acquisition of the structures of interest in the research.
6.2 Measures
Four measures were used to obtain information on language development in Spanish: a
parent questionnaire, the Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes (Dunn, Lugo, Padilla & Dunn,
1997), a language sample, and an elicitation task. Each of these is described below.
55
6.2.1 Parent Questionnaire. This questionnaire was developed by Restrepo (1998).
Permission to use this measure was obtained from the author. The parent questionnaire
consists of two parts: a Parental Report of the Child’s Educational, Speech, or Language
Problems (PRSLP) and a Family History of Educational, Speech, and Language Problems
(FHSLP). The PRSLP includes 28 questions about parental perceptions of whether their child
has problems with expressive or receptive language, learning, and attention, as compared with
other children of the same age group. The FHSLP includes 21 questions about any history of
speech and language disorders, learning or reading disabilities, and attention deficit or
hyperactivity problems in the family, including siblings, father, mother, and grandparents,
with 105 questions in total. All questions in the questionnaire were in yes/no format and were
balanced so not all “desirable” answers were yes (See Appendix 1-Spanish- and 2-English for
a copy of the questionnaires).
The PRSLP was scored assigning one point for each concern that parents reported. For
example, one point was assigned if parents responded “yes” to the following question: “Do
your family or friends think that your child is difficult to understand?” The total score for the
questionnaire was the sum of all points representing concerns. A high score represented a high
level of parental concern about their child’s speech and language development. Restrepo
(1998) reported a mean score of 17 for a language disordered group. The FHSLP was scored
assigning one point for each question identified as a concern. The total score represented the
number of speech and language or problems reported in the family. Restrepo (1998) reported a
56
mean score of 23 for a language disordered group. Separate scores were calculated for the
FHSLP and the PRSLP.
6.2.2 Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes Peabody (TVIP; Dunn et al., 1997). This test is
based on the English version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 1997).
The TVIP assesses receptive vocabulary in Spanish-speaking children. In administering this
test, children are asked to point to pictures that match different stimulus words presented
orally by the examiner. Norms for this test were developed by testing monolingual Spanish-
speaking students in Mexico and Puerto Rico. The procedures to administer and score the
TVIP were those outlined in the TVIP manual for examiners. The mean standard score for the
TVIP is 100 with a standard deviation of 15.
6.2.3 Language Sample. A language sample was collected from each child using a story
retelling task. The story for this task was the wordless picture book “Frog Goes to Dinner”
(Mayer, 1974) with a Spanish script developed specifically for this study. The script had 47 T-
units with a MLTU of 9.52 and a subordination index of 1.47. The script was written with the
intention of including at least 5 modeled tokens of each of the grammatical structures of
interest. It contained 64 definite articles, 13 indefinite articles, 10 direct object pronouns, 14
reflexives, 6 plurals and 15 adjectives. The script is provided in Appendix 3.
The examiner read the story to each child using the script while the child looked at the
pictures in the book. Once the story was finished, the examiner asked the child to retell the
story while looking at the pictures. If children were shy to start retelling the story, the
57
examiner used the first page of the book to ask the child to identify the characters of the
story. Once the child identified the characters, the examiner asked the child again to retell the
story. During the story retelling the examiner asked questions such as “y entonces qué pasó?
(and then what happened?), “y que más” (what else?) and praised children for their efforts.
The narrative recounts were recorded using a Sony Mini Disk Hi-MD Walkman Digital
Music Player with a Sony ECM-719 electret condenser microphone. Audio files were
transferred to a computer hard drive using Sony Stage Music Software and then were copied
to DVDs. A native Spanish speaker transcribed each recording using the Systematic Analysis
of Language Transcripts Research Version 8 Software (SALT; Miller & Chapman, 1996).
Each transcription was segmented and coded using an adaptation of the SALT coding protocol
for Spanish (see Appendix 4). Counts of correct productions of articles, clitic object pronouns,
adjectives, and plurals produced in the sample were calculated from the narratives.
Additionally, the following four developmental language measures were calculated from the
language samples:
a. Mean Length of Terminable Units in Words (MLTU; Gutierrez-Clellen et al., 2000). A
Terminable Unit (T-unit) is a main clause plus its subordinated clauses (Hunt, 1965).
The T-unit Spanish adaptation suggested by Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994)
was used to segment the sample into T-units. That is, coordinated sentences that were
subjectless were considered as separate T-units, unlike English where they are counted
as one.
b. Number of T-units is the count of T-units per narrative (NU-TU).
58
c. Subordination Index is the number of dependent and independent clauses divided by
the total number of T-units (SUB-I, Paul, 2001).
d. Number of Grammatical Errors per T-unit (GRE-TU; Restrepo, 1998) is the sum of
grammatical errors for all T-units divided by the total number of T-units.
6.2.4 Elicitation Task. An elicitation task (ET) evaluating clitic object pronouns, articles,
adjectives and plurals was designed for this study. The elicitation task was divided into three
sections. Section one evaluated indefinite articles and plurals. Section two examined direct
object pronouns, indirect object pronouns and reflexive pronouns. Section three evaluated
definite articles, adjectives, and plurals. A list of the specific grammatical structures is
presented in Table 10. Although the grammatical structures are individually presented in this
list, they were analyzed within the context of the sentence.
A total of twenty grammatical structures were evaluated with a minimum of three
tokens per structure. The elicitation task consisted of 27 pictures eliciting 41 target responses.
Some pictures elicited more than one structure and some structures needed more than one
picture to be elicited. Some target answers evaluated more that one grammatical structure; for
example, the target answer las uvas verdes/the green grapes/ included a feminine plural
definite article, a plural noun, and a plural adjective. Each section of the elicitation task had
three practice items to train the children to the task. The elicitation task is provided in
Appendix 5.
The MacArthur Inventario del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas (Jackson-
Maldonado, Thal, Marchman, Newton, Fenson, & Conboy, 2003), the Spanish version of
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MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (Fenson et al., 1993) was used
as a vocabulary source to select the verbs, nouns, and adjectives used in the elicitation task.
This parent report instrument of receptive vocabulary was designed for use with children from
8 to 30 months and was normed on monolingual Spanish-speaking children. Therefore, it was
deemed the best available vocabulary source for 3 year old Spanish-speaking children.
Each of the prompt questions was written using simple sentences in the present tense.
Once the prompts were designed, an illustrator from Cali, Colombia, was contacted to draw
the pictures. Special considerations were taken to ensure that the pictures were age appropriate
to maintain attention and interest during the task.
To administer the test, the examiner followed the information contained in the task
protocol booklet for the elicitation task and asked the questions outlined for each page. To
ensure the highest coding accuracy, the examiner audio recorded all the answers provided by
the children using the Sony Mini Disk Hi-MD Walkman Digital Music Player with the
microphone. The audio files were transferred to a computer hard drive using Sony Stage
Music Software and then were copied to DVDs. A native Spanish speaker transcribed the
responses on a response sheet. Each response was coded using the coding protocol for
elicitation task, as illustrated in Appendixes 6-10.
Pilot data were collected to verify the feasibility of the elicitation task and to determine
the length of the testing session with children. The pilot data were collected from 3 Spanish-
speaking adults and 5 Spanish-speaking children who lived in the Greater Toronto Area. The
adults were native Spanish-speakers from Colombia who spoke English as a second language.
60
Table 10. Grammatical Structures for the Elicitation Task
ARTICLES Examples
Definite article feminine singular La mariposa/ the butterfly
Definite article masculine singular El pescado/the fish
Definite article feminine plural Las uvas/ the grapes
Definite article masculine plural Los pajaros/ the birds
Indefinite article feminine singular Una mesa/ a table
Indefinite article masculine singular Un perro/ a dog
Indefinite article feminine plural Unas flores/ some flowers
Indefinite article masculine plural Unos trenes/ some trains
PLURALS Examples
Allomorph /s/ Carros/ cars
Allomorph /es/ Flores/ Flowers
ADJECTIVES Examples
Singular Amarillo/yellow
Plural Verdes/ green plural
Feminine Roja/ red feminine
Masculine Rojo/ red masculine
CLITIC OBJECT PRONOUNS Examples
3rd
Feminine singular La peina / combs her
3rd
Masculine singular Lo lee/ reads it
3rd
Feminine plural Las corta/ cuts them
3rd
Masculine plural Los lava/ washes them
3rd
Reflexive and Spurious “se” Se lo toma/ drinks it himself
Se la da/ it is given to
3rd
Dative Le escribe/ writes her/his
Note. 3rd
= Third person.
61
Spanish-English bilingual children from Spanish-speaking families. Four of the
children were 3 years old and one was 5 years old. Children seemed to enjoy the task and on
average it took them about 10-15 minutes to complete. Results from these pilot data led to the
conclusion that the elicitation task was appropriate for the target age groups. One difficulty
found during the administration of the pilot test was the fact that the examiner had to
immediately transcribe the responses on the response sheet. The accuracy of the response was
questionable because children spoke at different rates and volumes. Modifications to the
procedures were made resulting in the decision of audio record all responses for the elicitation
task as discussed previously.
6.3 Procedures
Initial interviews with the directors of potential participating schools were carried out
to explain the study and obtain approval to send information to the parents. Once the
institution approved participation in the study, teachers sent information letters, consent forms
and parent questionnaires to the parents of children who were in the targeted age range.
Parents returned signed consent forms and completed parent questionnaires once they
consented to their child’s participation in the study. Parents were provided with contact
information for the researcher should they have any questions. Children were asked if they
wanted to participate in the study and verbal assent was obtained in every case, except for two
children who did not want to participate in the study and were therefore not included. Their
parents were informed that their children had declined to participate in the study.
62
All testing was conducted individually in a quiet room provided by the schools. The
testing was completed in one session of 40 to 60 minutes depending on the age of the child.
Older children completed the testing more quickly than younger children. The hearing
screening was completed first as it was a measure for inclusion in the study. Two children did
not pass the hearing screening and were therefore not included in the study. They were asked
to repeat the hearing screening in three months. Similarly, children who the investigator
considered to be performing below expectations for the task were referred for speech and
language assessment, based on her clinical skills as a certified speech-language pathologist.
The TVIP was administered first to establish rapport with the children. The elicitation task
followed the TVIP and the testing session ended with the story retelling task. Children
received stickers at the end of each task and all the children in the participating classrooms
received an ice cream when the testing was completed in the school. See Appendix 12 for
information letters, parental consent and child assents script.
6.4 Reliability
Point to point inter-rater reliability was calculated for transcription of the elicitation
task, and on 10% of the language samples including the transcription of the narratives, and the
segmentation and coding of grammatical errors. The rater was a native speaker of Spanish
from Colombia with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and without a linguistic
background. She received three hours of training on language sample transcription and
coding.
63
Using the random.org web page (www.random.org), three groups of 11 children
each were randomly selected for reliability analyses. The first group was used to calculate
reliability for the transcription of the elicitation task. The second group was used to calculate
reliability for narrative transcription. The last group was used to calculate T-unit segmentation
and grammatical error coding. Disagreements were resolved in every case by consensus
between the raters. Point to point reliability for these test is provide in Table 11 below.
Table 11. Point to Point Reliability
Point to point reliability % of agreement
Transcription for elicitation task 92.90
Transcription for narratives 94.16
T-unit segmentation 92.15
Grammatical error coding 95.18
64
7. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results from this investigation are presented in three sections. Section one (7.1) includes
results from the TVIP and the parent questionnaires. Section two (7.2) presents the results for
the developmental language measures (number of T-units, mean length of T-units in words,
subordination index, and grammatical errors per T-unit). Section three (7.3) shows the results
for the developmental trends in the acquisition of grammatical structures.
7.1.1 Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes TVIP
Descriptive analyses for the standard scores on the TVIP indicated that the 3-year-old group
had an average performance of 107.58 (SD= 10.56), the 4-year-old group had an average
value of 111.20 (SD= 13.90), and the 5-year-old group had an average value of 103.50 (SD=
16.62) (See Table 12). The 4-year-old group had the highest mean for the TVIP, although the
difference, when compared to the other two groups, did not reach significance [F (2,110)
=2.96, p=.058].
Table 12. Descriptive Statistics for Standard Scores on TVIP
Group N Mean SD Range
3 38 107.58 10.56 82.00 – 131.00
4 40 111.20 13.90 86.00 – 145.00
5 36 103.50 16.62 68.00 – 136.00
Total 114 107.56 14.10 68.00 – 145.00
Two of the children in the 3 year-old group scored more than one standard deviation below
the mean. The TVIP test result of one of these children was unscorable because the raw score
was zero, and there is no standard score for this value. This child was removed from the TVIP
statistical analysis but was included in all further analyses. All children in the four-year-old
group scored within one standard deviation of the mean. In the five-year-old group, five
65
children scored more than one standard deviation below the mean, with scores ranging from
68 to 84. The data for the 4- and 5-year-old group were more widely distributed than the data
from the 3-year-old group (see Figure 4). These data showed an overall normal distribution as
is indicated for normative data collection.
Figure 4. TVIP standard score distribution per age group
7.1.2 Parent Questionnaire
The response rate for the parent questionnaire was 89.6% (N=103). The 10.4% who did not
return the questionnaire were eliminated from this analysis but included in all other analyses.
The parent questionnaire was filled out by mothers (78.6%), fathers (11.7%), grandmothers
Age 5
Age 4
Age 3
66
(3.9%), and grandfathers (1%). Five percent of the questionnaires had no answer to the
question regarding who filled out the questionnaire, but they were nevertheless included in the
analysis. Descriptive statistics indicated that the mean value for the Parental Report of Speech
and Language Problems (PRSLP) was 4.80 (SD= 4.37) for the 3-year-old group, 4.02 (SD=
4.25) for the 4-year-old group, and 3.45 (SD= 3.14) for the 5-year-old group (See Figure 5).
These scores represented the level of parental concern regarding speech and language
development. A score of zero represented not being at all concerned. The scores from the
PRSLP were assigned to two categorical variables: low and high level of parental concern
regarding speech and language problems of their child. Using Restrepo (1998) mean values
for normal developing children, scores from 0 to 8 were assigned to the low level of parental
concern category. A score of 9 or higher was assigned to the high level of parental concern
category. See Table 13 for data frequency by age groups. No significant association was
found between age groups and the levels of parental concern regarding speech and language
problems of their child [_2(2)=.348, p=.939].
Figure 5. Means and two standard deviations for PRSLP across age groups.
67
Descriptive statistics for the Family History of Speech and Language Problems
(FHSLP) indicated that the average score for the 3-year-old group was 3.50 (SD= 4.14), for
the 4-year-old group was 3.19 (SD= 3.12), and for the 5-year-old group was 2.72 (SD= 4.04).
The score on the FHSLP represents the number of concerns or potential problem areas with
respect to speech and language problems in the family of the child. The scores from the
FHSLP were assigned to two categorical variables: low and high level of frequency of speech
and language problems in the family. Using an average between Restrepo’s data and the
means for FHSLP found in this investigation, scores below 7 were assigned to the low
frequency of speech and language problems in the family category. Conversely, a score of 7 or
higher was assigned to the high frequency of speech and language problems in the family
category. See Table 13 for data frequency by age groups. No significant association was
found between age groups and the frequency of speech and language problems in the family
[_2(2)=.348, p=.939].
Table 13. Frequency data by age group for the PRSLP
Questionnaire Level 3-year olds 4-year olds 5-year olds
Low 29 30 29PRSLP
High 6 5 4
Low 21 25 28FHSLP
High 9 6 5
7.1.3. Discussion of the results from the TVIP and parent questionnaire
The data from the TVIP showed that the Colombian SS-children scored slightly higher than
the mean standard score of 100 set by the test. Although the mean score was higher than
68
expected, the frequency of the data when graphically presented showed a bell shaped curve
indicating a normal distribution of scores. This normal distribution indicates that children with
different language skills were represented in the sample collected. The fact that the data are
normally distributed is crucial for this investigation because one of the main interests was to
capture a range of language skills that could include typically developing children as well as
children with possible language disorders as it is indicated in normal normative samples
(Ukrainetz, 1996).
The TVIP identified 7 children (3 girls and 4 boys) who performed more than one
standard deviation below the mean. These children represented 6% of the current sample,
which approximates the estimate of 7% for the proportion of language disordered children in
English-speaking contexts (Tomblin, et al., 1997). The low scores obtained on the TVIP do
not confirm that these children had a language disorder, and additional results regarding their
performance on other language tasks would be required to provide information with respect to
the language status of these children.
No significant differences were found in TVIP standard scores between the 3-, 4-, and
5-year old SS children. Because standard scores were used for these analyses, vocabulary
scores were not expected to increase with age. However, the data in the 5-year-old group were
more widely distributed and the mean in the 4-year-old group was 11.2 above the mean set by
the test. Considering that the standard deviation of the test is 15, this difference is worthy of
further consideration.
One reason for the possible differences found in the performance of Colombian
children might be the fact that the test is an adaptation of the English PPVT. The TVIP was
69
thought to be the best available option as a standardized test for the Colombian population
because it was normed with Mexican and Puerto Rican SS children. However, this is the first
time that this test is reported to have been used with children from a South American SS
country. Dunn et al. (1997) reported in the examiner’s manual of the TVIP that special
considerations were taken to guarantee that the Spanish words (translated from English)
represented the words in the newest Spanish dictionaries at the time the test was adapted.
However, this does not ensure that the words are culturally equivalent. For example, one of
the stimulus pages of the examination booklet presents a picture of a kangaroo, a platypus, a
weasel, and a stegosaurus. Although the target word kangaroo (canguro) might be known by
Latin American children, the cultural appropriateness of these four animals as a representation
of the vocabulary of a Latin American child is questionable. It is possible that children might
pick the picture of the kangaroo because it is the only picture they recognize. The equivalence
and accuracy of translating tests from English to Spanish has been a topic of considerable
discussion in the last decade (e.g., Restrepo & Silverman, 2001) and recommendations have
been made to design tests that are linguistically and culturally appropriate for the Hispanic
community rather than adapting existing measures. However, until such tests exist on the
market, the best alternative for clinicians and researchers is to use the available ones while
taking into consideration the possible methodological flaws that this practice entails.
The second task, presented in section 7.1, was the Parental Report of Speech and
Language Problems (PRSLP; Restrepo, 1998). The results from this questionnaire suggested
that there were no differences between the age groups on parental perceptions regarding the
existence of problems with expressive and receptive language, learning and attention in their
70
children indicating that the three age groups were comparable in this respect. In other
words, parental beliefs about the language status of their children did not change with age
(e.g., parents of 3-year-olds were not more worried about the language of their child than
parents of 5-year-olds). This seems to be in line with previous findings that parents can
provide important information regarding the language status of their child (Fenson et al.,
1993; Rescorla, 1993; O’Neil, 2007).
Restrepo (1998) reported that a group of children identified as normally developing
and with an age range of 5;0 to 7;1 had a mean score of 4.7 (SD= 2.76) on the PRSLP. The
children in the present study ranged in age from 2;9 to 5;3 and had a mean score of 4.1 (SD=
3.97). The fact that the standard deviation of the children in this study is slightly higher than
the standard deviation reported in Restrepo (1998) might be explained by the inclusion of
children representing different language levels, not only normally developing children, in this
investigation. The findings of the PRSLP are consistent with Restrepo’s results.
The data from the family history of speech and language problems (FHSLP; Restrepo,
1998) suggested that there were no differences between groups on the parental report of
history of speech and language problems in the family of the child. Restrepo (1998) reported
that the normally developing children in her study had an average score of 9.93 (SD= 7.34)
which is considerably higher than the scores of the children in this study (3.12, SD= 3.78).
Possible cultural factors might explain this difference. It is possible that Colombian families
are less aware of previous language problems in the family because the concepts of language
disorders and language intervention are relatively new areas of development in Colombia as
compared to the United States, where Restrepo’s data were collected.
71
The variation in scores might also be explained by possible methodological flaws in
this questionnaire. First, the measure contains a total of 105 yes/no questions, and this might
be too long to complete accurately. Second, the measure might challenge the memory of the
person who is filling out the questionnaire because it asks for facts that might have happened a
long time ago (eg. data from the childhood of parents and grand parents). Third, data from
grandparents might be not reliable because it is likely that concepts such as special education
did not exist at that time.
Careful consideration should be taken when selecting the best possible tools to collect
information from Latin American children. Although the TVIP and Parent Questionnaire used
in this study provided useful data to describe the children, considerations regarding the
cultural appropriateness of these measures should not be disregarded. The process of
development of new measures is still in the initial phases for Latin American communities,
but there is a growing interest in this linguistic group that might facilitate the advancement of
this psychometric domain. The following chapters contribute to the paucity of assessment
tools and norms that are culturally and linguistically appropriate for Hispanic communities.
7.2 Developmental language measures
This section presents the findings related to typical values for number of T-units (NU-TU),
mean length of T-units in words (MLTU), subordination index (SUB-I), and grammatical
errors per T-unit (GRE-TU) measures for the 3-, 4-, and 5-year old monolingual SS children.
Descriptive statistics were calculated to characterize the typical values for NU-TU, MLTU,
SUB-I, and GRE-TU for the three groups. Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) were then
carried out to determine whether statistically significant differences existed between the
72
groups, with age group as the independent variable and NU-TU, MLTU, SUB-I and GRE-
TU as the dependent variables. When statistically significant differences were found, post-hoc
comparisons using contrast coefficients were used to find the source of the difference. Two
different comparisons were made: one comparing 3-year-olds with 4-year-olds and a second
comparing 4-year-olds with 5-year-olds. Symbols such as =, <, and > will be used to
represent the statistically significant differences found between the age groups. For example,
the notation 3<(4=5) should be interpreted as meaning that 3-year-olds performed
significantly lower than 4- and 5- year olds, with no changes between the latter two groups.
The effect size d (Cohen, 1988) was calculated for each of the comparisons. Tables with the
results from the post hoc comparisons and effect sizes are presented at the end of each
subsection. Table 17, presented in section 7.2.5 summarizes the descriptive statistics for the
four developmental language measures. Bars with + or – 1 SD are used to graphically present
the means per group. Correlations among the language measures were also examined and are
presented in Appendix 12.
7.2.1 Number of T-Units
Results of the descriptive analysis for NU-TU indicated that 3-year-old SS children produced
an average of 15.11 T-units (SD= 8.68), 4-year-old SS children produced on average 25.03
units (SD= 8.30), and 5-year-old SS children produced on average 27.62 T-units (SD= 7.92)
during the story retelling task. ANOVA revealed that this difference was statistically
significant [F (2,106 = 22.44<.001] and planned comparisons using contrast coefficients
revealed that the 3-year-old group was significantly different from the 4-year-old group, but
73
no significant differences were found between 4- and 5-year-old children [3<(4=5)]. See
Table 14 for comparison results and effect sizes.
.
Figure 6. Mean performance for NU-TU for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children
Table 14. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for NU-TU.
Contrast Groups Results of Planned Comparison Effect Size
3 and 4 t (106) = -5.12, p < .001 d = 1.142
4 and 5 t (106) = -1.33, p = .187 d = .312
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.2.2 Mean Length of T-Units
Results of the descriptive analysis for MLTU indicated that 3-year-old SS children
produced an average of 4.69 words per T-unit (SD= 1.50), 4-year-old SS children produced an
average of 5.95 words per T-unit (SD= 1.12), and 5-year-old SS children produced an average
of 6.69 words per T-unit (SD= 1.42) when retelling the story. ANOVA revealed that this
difference was statistically significant [F (2,106) = 19.67, p=<.001]. Planned comparisons
using contrast coefficients revealed that the 3-year-old group was significantly different from
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the 4-year old group and the 4-year-old group was significantly different from the 5-year-
old group [3<4<5]. See Table 15 for comparison results and effect sizes.
Figure 7. Mean performance for MLTU for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children
Table 15. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for MLTU
Contrast Groups Results of Planned Comparison Effect Size
3 and 4 t (106) = -4.03, p <. 001 d = .962
4 and 5 t (106) = -2.33, p = .022 d = .583
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.2.3 Subordination Index
Results of the descriptive analysis for SUB-I indicated that 3-year-old SS children had an
average value of 1.02 (SD= .19), 4-year-old SS children had an average value of 1.12 (SD=
.12), and 5-year-old SS children had an average value of 1.17 (SD= .12) for subordination
index on the story retelling task. ANOVA revealed that this difference was statistically
significant [F (2,106) = 9.84, p<.001]. Planned comparisons using contrast coefficients
75
revealed that the 3-year-old group was significantly different from the 4-year old group, but
no differences were found between 4- and 5-year-old children [3<(4=5)]. See Table 16 for
comparison results and effect sizes.
Figure 8. Mean performance for SUB-I for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children
Table 16. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for SUB-I.
Contrast Groups Results of Planned Comparison Effect Size
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.81, p = .006 d = .625
4 and 5 t (106) = -1.70, p = .092 d = .500
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.2.4 Grammatical errors per T-unit
Results of the descriptive analysis for GRE-TU indicated that 3-year-old SS children had an
average value of .20 (SD= .21) for grammatical errors per T-unit, 4-year-old SS children had
an average value of .14 (SD= .10), and 5-year-old SS children had an average value of .16
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(SD= .13) in the story retelling task. ANOVA revealed that this difference was not
statistically significant [3=4=5] [F (2,106) = 1.37, p=.259].
Figure 9. Mean performance for GRE-TU for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children
To further explore the grammaticality of the samples and corroborate the findings from
GRE-TU, a second measure of grammatical accuracy was calculated. A measure of
grammatical errors per 100 words was calculated from each one of the samples using the total
number of words produced by each child. A very similar pattern to GRE-TU was found with
grammatical error per 100 words [F (2,106) = 2.00, p =.140]. No statistical significant
differences were found between the groups on either of these grammatical measures.
7.2.5 Summary of developmental language measures based on spontaneous language
NU-TU, MLTU, and SUB-I showed increasing developmental trends across the three age
groups. Changes on NU-TU were statistically significant between 3-year-olds and 4- and 5-
year olds combined. Changes on MLTU and SUB-I were statistically significant between 3-
year-olds, 4-year-olds and 5-year olds. There were no significant differences in the rate of
77
grammatical errors per T-unit produced by 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children. The
developmental language measures investigated in this study showed significant correlations
among each other. NU-TU, MLTU and SUB-I were significantly correlated (See Appendix
12). However, GRE-TU did not show any significant correlation with the other developmental
language measures. These developmental language measures correlated as well with other
language tasks, and these correlations are presented in Appendix 12.
Table 17. Descriptive Statistics for Developmental Language Measures
Age N Mean SD Range
3 36 15.11 8.68 0.00 - 34.00
4 39 25.03 8.30 9.00 - 42.00
NU-TU
5 34 27.62 7.92 9.00 - 43-00
3 36 4.69 1.50 0.00 - 7.41
4 39 5.95 1.12 4.15 - 8.16
MLTU
5 34 6.69 1.42 2.33 - 8.39
3 36 1.02 .19 1.00 – 1.33
4 39 1.12 .12 1.00 – 1.45
SUB-I
5 34 1.17 .12 1.00 – 1.44
3 36 .20 .21 0.00 – 0.71
4 39 .14 .10 0.00 - 0.46
GRER-
TU
5 34 .16 .13 0.03 - 0.56
7.2.6 Discussion of developmental language measures
The data from this investigation provide novel information regarding the development of
number of T-units, mean length of T-units in words, subordination index and grammatical
errors per T-units for SS children. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who work with SS
children have traditionally used a more subjective approach to narrative language assessment
because normative data were not available for this population. The results from this
investigation will greatly assist SLPs in their assessment of the language status of referred
78
children. They will be able to use this information to provide more adequate language
judgments that include references to normal development.
Mean length of T-units and grammatical errors per T-units have been reported to be
good indicators of language disorders in SS children (Restrepo, 1998; Simon-Cereijido &
Gutierrez-Clellen, 2007). The means and standard deviations presented in this investigation
for these two measures can serve as a normative reference against which to compare the
individual performance of Spanish-speaking children. This represents a significant
advancement for the language assessment of SS children and will have an impact on the
quality and objectivity of this type of assessment.
As discussed in Chapter 5, a considerable information gap with respect to developmental
language measures for preschool SS children exists in the literature. The results of this study
contribute to the filling of this gap and to advancing the literature on language acquisition for
3-, 4-, and 5- year old SS children. This is the first study that has examined these particular
language structures in a relatively large group of monolingual SS children covering three age
ranges. Furthermore, this is the only available study on developmental language measures for
SS children that segments the age groups into brackets of + or – 3 months of the date of birth.
This is different from the information available in the literature where larger variations in the
age groupings are typically presented. The strict selection criteria used in this study allowed
developmental changes across the age groupings to be shown for some of the structures of
interest to the research.
The results from this study are comparable to those presented in some of the studies
conducted on SS children previously reviewed. Information provided in Table 18 compares
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previous findings for the same developmental measures obtained from SS children with the
results from this study. It is important to note that only data from the 5-year-old group is
presented for comparative purposes, as this is the closest age group to what has been reported
in previous studies. A unique contribution of this research is the presentation of the means and
standard deviations for these four measures for 3- and 4-year-old SS children in addition to the
5-year-old group.
Table 18. Comparison of Means and Standard Deviations (in parentheses) for Developmental
Language Measures
Castilla (2008)
(Age 5;0)
Gutierrez-Clellen &
Hofstetter (1994)
(Age 5;0)
Restrepo (1998)
(Age 6;2)
Simon-Cereijido
& Gutierrez-
Clellen (2007)
(Age 4;6)
NU-TU 27.62 (SD=9.6) 24.3 (SD=19.5) * *
MLTU 6.69 (SD=1.42) 6.5 (SD=.9) 5.6 (SD=.8) 5.7 (SD=1.0)
SUB-I 1.18 (SD=.12) 1.11 (SD=.13) * *
GRE-TU 0.16 (SD=.14) * 0.09 (SD=.05) 0.17 (.04)
Note: * Not reported
The first measure obtained from the language sample was the number of T-units (NU-
TU) that children used to retell the story. A significant developmental change in NU-TU
occurred between 3 and 4 years of age, and there was a plateau between 4 and 5 years.
Assuming a normal distribution of these data, it is possible then to suggest that 68% of 3-year-
old SS children will produce between 6 and 24 T-units to retell this story based on the same
narrative script. Similarly, 68% of 4- and 5-year olds will be expected to produce between 18
and 34 T-units.
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The hypothesis proposed for NU-TU in section 5 was supported by the results of this
study. The mean value for the 5-year-old group was 27.62, which is within 0.5 SD of the
mean reported by Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (24.3, SD=19.5; 1994). These results are
consistent with Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter’s (1994) findings for the 5-year-old SS
children. It is possible that the plateau of NU-TU used to retell a story was reached at age 4 as
Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) found no differences in this measure among 5-, 6-,
and 8-years old SS children. This will require further investigation.
The developmental changes for MLTU in words were statistically significant for the
three age groups, showing a clear developmental increase in the length of T-units produced by
SS children. The data suggested a rough estimate of one additional word per year starting at
around four words by age three. The hypothesis proposed for MLTU in section 5 was
supported by the data. Five-year-old children had an average value for MLTU of 6.69 which is
within 0.5 SD of the mean reported by Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (6.5, SD=.9; 1994).
Interestingly, Restrepo (1998) reported a lower mean for MLTU for an older group of
children than the one found in this investigation. Her study involved 31 SS typically
developing children (mean age 6;2, SD= 0;7) who obtained a mean MLTU of 5.6 (SD= .8),
which is considerably lower than the mean for the 5-year-old children in this study (6.7; SD=
1.4). This difference might be explained by the methodology used to elicit the language
samples. Restrepo (1998) used a combination of picture description, an interview with the
child and a story retelling task, which might have led to a lower mean score for MLTU than if
only story retelling had been used. This is consistent with previous literature on elicitation
techniques in that story retelling tasks have been found to yield to longer utterances than other
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elicitation techniques (Gazella & Stockman, 2003; Wagner et al. 2002). Another possibility
is that the script developed for this study had longer utterances than the one used by Restrepo,
which would potentially result in lengthier narratives.
The results of this study are consistent with Simon-Cereijido and Gutierrez-Clellen’s
findings (2007) with respect to MLTU for their 4-year-olds. Although their group mean age
was 4;6, their results were more similar to the results obtained from the 4-year-olds than to the
5-year-olds in this study. These similarities might be a result of using a story retelling task as
sampling technique. The Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) study also used a story
retelling task, and their results for 5-year-old children were similar to the results reported in
this investigation.
The results for SUB-I suggested developmental changes among the three age groups.
Three-year olds produced little subordination (1.02), but this value increased with age up to
1.18 by age five. This SUB-I value means that, for a typical 28 T-unit story, a 5 year- old child
produced on average five T-units containing subordinated clauses. Although the difference
across age groups seems very small, subordination index is a measure with a small range of
performance. A value of 1 indicates no subordination, and the production of a subordinated
clause in every T-unit would correspond to a value of 2. The script that was read to the
children had a SUB-I of 1.47.
The mean value for subordination index for the 5-year old group was 1.18, which falls
slightly above 0.5 SD of the mean reported by reported in Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter for
their 5-year-olds (1.11 , SD=.13; 1994) and closer to the value they reported for their 6-year-
old children (1.18, SD=. 11). Therefore, the results of this study did not support the hypothesis
82
for SUB-I proposed in section 5. Although both studies used a story retelling task to obtain
the spontaneous language data, Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) did not provide
information on the SUB-I of their movie script. As was previously stated, the script designed
for the present research has a SUB-I of 1.47. This could have impacted the narrative skills of
the participating children, resulting in a higher SUB-I in this study.
The results of this study provide novel information on developmental language changes
for young children on the SUB-I measure. However, it is important to highlight that there
were children in all three age groups who produced a SUB-I of one (meaning no
subordination). This may suggest that SUB-I could be a measure of language complexity but
might not be able to serve as a potential identifier of language disorders because no
subordination seems to be a normal pattern in these young age groups. This measure would
likely have a stronger diagnostic potential with older children, avoiding the floor effects found
for the young age groups. In fact, Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstteter (1994) reported a SUB-I
mean value of 1.23 (SD= .13) for their 8-year-old children, which might be used to identify
children in the low extreme of the distribution at this particular age.
Grammatical errors per T-unit has been suggested as a reliable indicator of language
disorders in Spanish-speaking children (Restrepo, 1998; Simon-Cereijido & Gutierrez-Clellen,
2007). The results of this investigation suggested that no developmental changes in GRE-TU
occurred across the three age groups. Interestingly, regardless of the increase in utterance
length with age, the ratio of errors per T-unit did not show changes. No other studies
investigating changes in GRE-TU in SS children were available at the time this dissertation
was written against which this compare these findings.
83
The mean value for GRE-TU for the 5-year-old group was .16 (SD=.14), which is
greater than 0.5 SD of the mean reported by Restrepo (0.09, SD=.05; 1998). Therefore, the
results of this study do not support the hypothesis for GRE-TU provided in section 5. The
higher mean found in this study might be explained by the fact that Restrepo (1998) had a
group of children who had already been identified as being typically developing, while this
investigation included a range of children, and may have included children with and without
language disorders.
The results of this investigation with respect to GRE-TU are consistent with the findings
reported by Simon-Cereijido and Gutierrez-Clellen (2007) for their typically developing four
and a half- year old children. Although their grammatical measure represents the percentage
of utterances with grammatical errors in their sample, they found a mean value of .17 (SD=
.04), which is very close to the GRE-TU values for 4- and 5-year-old children in this study.
ANOVA showed no change with age for GRE-TU, and correlation analysis showed no
significant correlation between GRE-TU and the other developmental measures. This
suggests that GRE-TU may not be a developmental measure. However, it may still be useful
for the identification of language disorders as previously suggested by Restrepo (1998) and
Simon-Cereijido and Gutierrez-Clellen (2007). Percentages of errors as high as 35% (Simon-
Cereijido & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2007) and 39% (Restrepo, 1998) have been found in SS
children with language disorders.
With respect to elicitation techniques, story retelling seems to be an appropriate task to
collect complex narratives that allow the examination of NU-TU, MLTU, GRE-TU and SUB-
I in SS children. Although no direct comparisons across elicitation tasks were performed, the
84
results from the developmental language measures suggest that this task is culturally and
linguistically appropriate for Spanish-speaking children as previously suggested by Restrepo
and Castilla (2007). The script developed for this study elicited narratives that showed
increasing language skills across the three age groups. The script used in the story retelling
task as a model had 47 T-units with a MLTU of 9.52, and a SUB-I of 1.47.
The results for the developmental language measures in general were consistent with the
results of Gutierrez-Clellen and Hofstetter (1994) and Simon-Cereijido and Gutierrez-Clellen
(1997). Although the children who participated in those studies had exposure to and were
learning a second language, their developmental language measure results were comparable to
those obtained from monolingual children. As previously suggested by Genesee, Paradis and
Crago (2004), it appears that the development of each of the languages of the dual language
learner follows a very similar pattern to the language development of monolingual children.
These findings are not confirmed and further research is needed in this area. However, it
might be possible that the findings of this investigation could be applied to bilingual children
in the future, thus extending the usefulness and applicability of these data to a larger
population of children. Further research would be needed to establish the applicability of these
findings to bilingual populations.
7.3 Acquisition of Grammatical Structures
This section summarizes results related to the production of clitic object pronouns, articles,
plurals and adjectives by SS monolingual children at ages 3, 4 and 5 based on data obtained
from both the elicitation and the story retelling tasks. The data from the elicitation task are
85
presented as percentages correct based on the number of tokens tested and are compared to
the adult data (n=10). Because the adult data have considerably less variation than the child
data, the Brown-Forsythe f test is used to examine differences between means. This test
corrects for the inequality of variances across groups. Comparison tests using contrast
coefficients were used to find the source of any significant differences. Three sets of
comparison were run: one comparing 3-year-olds with 4-year-olds, a second one comparing 4-
year-olds to 5-year olds, and a last one comparing 5-year-olds to adults. Tables with the
comparison results and effect sizes are presented for each paired grouped at the end of each
grammatical structure sub section. As in the previous sections, symbols such as =, <, and > are
used to represent the statistically significant differences between the age groups such that
3<4<5 should be interpreted as indicating that 3-year-olds performed significantly lower than
4- year-olds and 4-year-olds performed significantly lower than 5-year-olds. This notation is
used in the text for the elicitation task only. Table 25 presents this notation for the
spontaneous language data as well. Bars representing mean percentages and standard
deviations per age group are again used to graphically illustrate the data.
The data from the language sample are presented in the form of two different measures.
First, the raw counts of grammatical structures are presented in order to provide information
on how many times a child used a specific structure during the story retelling task. Because
the stories differed in length across the age groups, a ratio of counts per number of T-units is
also used to provide further information about the productive use of the grammatical
structures of interest in this study. The following example might help the reader to better
understand these two measures. A 3-year-old child might use three adjectives in a story
86
compared to a 5-year–old, who uses nine adjectives. If we examine the raw counts, the 5-
year-old is producing more adjectives than the 3-year-old. However, if we take into account
the length of the story, the 3-year-old produces nine T-units compared to the 5-year-old who
produces 27 T-units. If we use a ratio of counts per T-unit, both children are producing one
adjective per three T-units, or a ratio of 0.33. The differences between these two measures and
their implications will be discussed in Section 7.3.9.
7.3.1 Direct object pronouns
Results from both the elicitation task and the language sample showed an increase in the
productive use of direct object pronouns with age. Data from the elicitation task indicated that
the 3-year-old group produced 32.2% (SD= 26.0) of target clitic pronouns, the 4-year-old
group produced 65.0% (SD= 24.8), the 5-year old group produced 69.6% (SD= 23.2), and the
adult group produced 98.0% (SD= 3.5). This difference was statistically significant [Brown-
Forsythe f= (3,109.1) = 36.6, p<.001]. Post hoc analysis using contrast coefficients and
adjusting for inequality of variances indicated that the mean percentage of the 3-year-old
group was significantly different from the mean percentage of the 4- and 5-year-olds, and the
mean percentage of the adult group was significantly higher than the mean percentage of the
5-year olds [3<(4=5)<Adults]. Some children produced non target responses in the elicitation
task. These other response types are reported as percentages in Appendix 7. The most frequent
other response produced by children was the omission of the direct clitic pronoun.
87
Figure 10. Means and standard deviations of direct object pronoun use- Elicited language
Table 19 presents the descriptive results for direct object pronoun use in spontaneous
language. These data, illustrated in Figure 11, suggested a developmental trend in the
productive use of direct object pronouns [F (2,106) = 10.88, p<.001]. Post hoc analyses
revealed that the three groups of children were significantly different from each other.
However, no differences among the three age groups were found when a ratio of direct object
pronouns per T-unit was used for the analysis [F (2,106) = 1.47, p=.234]. See Table 20 for
comparison results and effect sizes.
Table 19. Descriptive Statistics for Direct Object Pronoun Use – Spontaneous Language
Group Mean SD Range
3 1.33 1.67 .00 – 7.00
4 2.60 2.07 .00 – 9.00
DO pronouns
5 3.71 2.58 .00 – 11.00
3 .09 .12 .00 – .50
4 .11 .09 .00 – .33
DO pronouns per
T-unit
5 .13 .08 .00 – .28
Note. DO= Direct Object
88
Figure 11. Means and SD bars for direct object pronouns (1st panel=raw counts, 2nd panel=
counts per T-unit) –Spontaneous language
Table 20. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Direct Object Pronouns
Analysis Contrast groups Results planned comparison Effect size
3 and 4 t (77.75) = 10.96, p < .001 d = 1.263
4 and 5 t (71.85) = -.818, p = .416 d = .184
Elicitation
Task
5 and Adults t (38.57) = -6.93, p < .001 d = 2.117
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.55, p = .012 d = .609Raw counts
4 and 5 t (106) = -2.23, p < .028 d = .436
3 and 4 t (106) = -.919, p = .360 d = .182Counts per T-
unit
4 and 5 t (106) = -.842, p = .401 d = .250
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.3.2 Reflexive pronouns
Results from the elicitation task revealed that children in the 3-year-old group produced
37.4% (SD= 33.7) of obligatory reflexive pronouns, children in 4-year-old group produced
69.2% (SD= 31.7), children in 5-year-old group produced 75.7% (SD= 31.4) and the adult
group produced 93.3% (SD= 8.6). Figure 12 shows the mean percentages and standard
89
deviations per group. The production of reflexive pronouns followed an increasing
developmental trend that was statistically significant [Brown-Forsythe f= (3,112.8) = 18.2,
p<.001]. Post hoc analyses revealed statistically significant differences between the 3-year-old
group, the 4- and 5-year old groups together, and the adult group [3<(4=5)<Adults]. Other
response types in the form of percentages are presented in Appendix 8. The most frequent
other response produced by children was the omission of the reflexive pronoun.
Figure 12 . Means and standard deviations for reflexive pronoun use- Elicited language.
Results regarding reflexive pronoun use obtained from the story retelling task are presented in
Table 21. These results showed a statistically significant difference in the production of
reflexives among the groups [F (2,106) = 6.25, p=.003]. The developmental change was
observed between 3 and 4 years of age and no further change was observed between the 4-
and 5- year age groups (See Figure 13). This statistical significance was not upheld when
reflexives per T-units were used [F (2,106) = .92, p=.404]. See Table 22 for comparison
results and effect sizes.
90
Table 21. Descriptive Statistics for Reflexive Pronouns -Spontaneous Language
Group Mean SD Range
3 5.33 3.78 .00 – 13.00
4 8.07 4.11 .00 – 16.00
Reflexive
pronouns
5 8.53 4.51 .00 – 17.00
3 .35 .21 .00 – .79
4 .33 .15 .00 – .67
Reflexive
pronouns per T-
unit 5 .30 .13 .00 – .50
Figure 13. Mean and SD bars for reflexive pronoun use (1st panel=raw counts, 2nd panel=
counts per T-unit) – Spontaneous language
Table 22. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Reflexive Pronouns
Analysis Contrast groups Results planned comparison Effect size
3 and 4 t (73.0) = -4.24, p < .001 d = .945
4 and 5 t (71.3) = .88, p = .380 d = .205
Elicitation
Task
5 and Adults t (43.0) = -2.95, p = .005 d = .880
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.869, p = .005 d = .609Raw counts
4 and 5 t (106) = -.466, p = .642 d = .436
3 and 4 t (106) = .580, p = .563 d = .182Counts per T-
unit
4 and 5 t (106) = .803, p = .424 d = .250
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
91
7.3.3 Indirect object pronouns
Results from the elicitation task showed a developmental increase in the use of indirect
objects with 3-year-olds using 5.4% (SD= 14.7) indirect object pronouns in obligatory
contexts, 4 year-olds using 29.1% (SD= 34.3) indirect object pronouns, 5-year olds showing
40.1% (SD= 42.7) indirect object pronoun use, and adults using 63.3% (SD= 36.7) indirect
object pronouns. This difference was statistically significant [Brown-Forsythe f= (3, 50.8) =
10.8, p<.001]. Figure 14 shows the increasing developmental pattern in the productive use of
this grammatical structure. Post hoc analyses using contrast coefficients showed that the
changes were significant between 3-years old, 4- and 5-years old together, and the adult group
[3<(4=5)<Adults].
Figure 14. Means and standard deviations for indirect object pronoun use- Elicited language
The data from the language samples, presented in Table 23, showed a significant difference in
the raw counts of indirect object pronouns used by 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children [F
(2,106) = 4.63, p=.012]. Post hoc analyses indicated that a significant change occurred
92
between 3 and 4 years of age. This significant difference was not upheld once the ratio of
indirect object pronouns per number of T-units was compared [F (2,106) = 1.28, p=.282].
Figure 15 illustrates the data from spontaneous language. Table 24 presents the comparison
results and effect sizes.
Table 23. Descriptive Statistics for Indirect Object Pronouns - Spontaneous Language
Figure 15. Mean and SD bars for indirect object pronoun use (1st panel=raw counts, 2nd
panel= counts per T-unit) – spontaneous language
Group Mean SD Range
3 1.31 1.86 .00 – 8.00
4 2.60 2.53 .00 – 11.00
Indirect object
pronouns
5 2.74 2.09 .00 – 8.00
3 .07 .10 .00 – .47
4 .11 .09 .00 – .40
Indirect object
pronouns per T-
unit 5 .10 .08 .00 – .36
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Table 24. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Indirect Object Pronouns
Analysis Contrast groups Results planned comparison Effect size
3 and 4 t (52.8) = -4.24, p < .001 d = .964
4 and 5 t (65.8) = .88, p = .191 d = .311
Elicitation
Task
5 and Adults t (16.4) = -2.95, p = .042 d = .568
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.53, p = .013 d = .583Raw counts
4 and 5 t (106) = .283, p = .778 d = .059
3 and 4 t (106) = -1.47, p = .143 d = .300Counts per T-
unit
4 and 5 t (106) = -.152, p = .879 d = .037
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.3.4 Adjectives
Results from the elicitation task showed a developmental increase in the use of adjectives
across the three age groupings. The 3-year-old group produced 33.1% (SD= 29.6) adjectives
in obligatory contexts in contrast with the 4- and 5- year-old groups who produced 69.2%
(SD= 26.1) and 79.4% (SD= 25.1) respectively, and the adults who produced 98.3% (SD=
3.51) adjectives in the elicitation task. This difference was statistically significant [Brown-
Forsythe f= (3, 106.4) = 36.8, p<.001]. Figure 16 graphically presents the developmental
increase seen in the use of adjectives. Post hoc analyses indicated that a significant
developmental change occurred between the 3-years old and the 4- and 5-years old together.
Adults were significantly different from the 4- and 5-year old children [3<(4=5)<Adults].
Other types of responses to the elicitation task for adjectives are presented in Appendix 9. The
most frequent other response produced by children was the omission of the adjective.
94
Figure 16. Means and SD for adjective use- Elicited language
The productive use of adjectives showed a developmental trend in spontaneous
language when raw counts of adjective usage were analyzed [F (2,106) = 11.95, p<.001] (See
Table 25 for descriptive data). Post hoc analyses revealed that the significant change occurred
between 3 years and 4 years of age. No changes were found between the 4-year-old and the 5-
year-old children. This change remained significant when the ratio of adjectives per T-unit
was used [F (2,106) = 6.59, p=.002], where the 3 year-old children produced fewer adjectives
per T-unit than the 4- and 5-year old children. Figure 17 illustrates these findings. Table 25
presents the comparison results and effect sizes.
Table 25. Descriptive Statistics for Adjective Use - Spontaneous Language
Group Mean SD Range
3 .83 1.29 .00 – 5.00
4 3.00 2.87 .00 – 11.00
Adjectives
5 3.35 2.57 .00 – 10.00
3 .05 .08 .00 – .25
4 .11 .09 .00 – .29
Adjectives per T-
unit
5 .11 .07 .00 – .26
95
Figure 17. Mean and SD bars for adjective use (1st panel=raw counts, 2nd panel= counts per
T-unit) – Spontaneous language
Table 26. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Adjectives
Analysis Contrast groups Results planned comparison Effect size
3 and 4 t (71.7) = -5.64, p < .001 d = 1.222
4 and 5 t (70.3) = -1.70, p = .094 d = .390
Elicitation
Task
5 and Adults t (36.9) = -4.26, p <.001 d = 1.324
3 and 4 t (106) = -3.97, p < .001 d = 1.043Raw counts
4 and 5 t (106) = .637, p = .525 d = .122
3 and 4 t (106) = -3.23, p = .002 d = .667Counts per T-
unit
4 and 5 t (106) = -.065, p = .948 d = .014
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.3.5 Indefinite articles
The results for indefinite articles obtained from the elicitation task showed a small
developmental increase in the productive use of indefinite articles among 3- 4- and 5-year-old
children. As shown in Figure 18, children in the 3-year-old group produced 45.3% (SD=
96
23.9) indefinite articles in obligatory contexts, the 4-year-old group produced 53.4% (SD=
22.2) and the 5-year old group produced 47.0% (SD= 26.4). In contrast, adults produced 80%
(SD= 23.6) of indefinite articles. This difference between the 3 child groups and the adult
group was statistically significant [Brown-Forsythe f= (3, 69.0) = 5.9, p=.001]. Post hoc
analyses indicated that the source of the significance was between the 3- and 4-year-olds with
no change between 4- and 5-year-olds. Adults performed significantly higher than 5-year-olds
[(3<(4=5)<Adults]. Appendix 10 presents the other responses to the elicitation task for
indefinite articles. The most frequent other response produced by children was the omission of
the indefinite article.
Figure 18. Means and SD for indefinite article use- Elicited language
There was an increasing productive use of indefinite articles during the story retelling task as
shown by increases in the raw count of indefinite articles in spontaneous language [F (2,106)
97
= 18.7, p < .001] ( See Figure 19 and Table 27). Post hoc analysis indicated that the three
groups were statistically different. This difference across the three groups was upheld when
the ratio per T-units was used [F (2,106) = 10.6, p < .001]. Table 28 presents the comparison
results and effect sizes.
Table 27 - Descriptive Statistics for Indefinite Article Use - Spontaneous Language
Group Mean SD Range
3 1.05 1.57 .00 – 5.00
4 2.61 2.16 .00 – 8.00
Indefinite articles
5 4.79 3.62 .00 – 12.00
3 .06 .08 .00 – .33
4 .10 .09 .00 – .47
Indefinite articles
per T-unit
5 .17 .12 .00 – .48
Figure 19. Mean and SD bars for indefinite article use (1st panel=raw counts, 2nd panel=
counts per T-unit) – Spontaneous language
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Table 28. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Indefinite Articles
Analysis Contrast groups Results planned comparison Effect size
3 and 4 t (19.7) = 7.96, p < .001 d = .297
4 and 5 t (66.8) = .95, p = .343 d = .207
Elicitation
Task
5 and Adults t (16.0) = -3.80, p = .002 d = 1.256
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.63, p = .010 d = .726Raw counts
4 and 5 t (106) = -3.62, p <. 001 d = .602
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.03, p = .045 d = .556Counts per T-
unit
4 and 5 t (106) = -2.68, p = .008 d = .500
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.3.6 Definite articles
Results from the elicitation task suggested that children used few definite articles to complete
the elicitation task, in spite of this construction having been modeled. Three-year old children
produced 16.5% (SD= 19.2) definite articles in obligatory contexts, 4-year-olds produced
25.6% (SD= 24.8) definite articles, and 5-year-olds produced 28.1% (SD= 28.0) definite
articles to complete the task. In contrast, adults produced definite articles on average 93.3%
(SD= 10.24) of the time in obligatory contexts (see Figure 20). The difference across the four
groups was statistically significant [Brown-Forsythe f= (3,106.4) = 35.8, p= <001]. The source
of the significance was found to exist between the three groups of children and the adults
[(3=4=5)<Adults]. No differences were found among 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old SS children (Table
30). Children produced large percentages of indefinite articles to complete this task. See
Appendix 11 for definite article production and other responses to the elicitation task.
99
Figure 20. Means and SD for definite article use- Elicited language
Results from the language sample are presented in Table 29. These results suggested
that there was an increasing developmental trend in the productive use of definite articles.
This increasing pattern was shown for the raw count of definite articles [F (2,106) = 15.52,
p<.001] and for the ratio of definite articles per T-unit [F (2,106) = 4.0, p=.021]. For both of
these measures, the source of the significance was determined to exist between 3-year-old and
4- and 5-year-old groups together. Refer to Figure 21 for an illustration of these findings.
Table 29. Descriptive Statistics for Definite Article Use - Spontaneous Language
Group Mean SD Range
3 10.28 7.69 .00 – 39.00
4 19.54 11.12 4.00 – 49.00
Definite articles
5 22.59 9.84 .00 – 49.00
3 .60 .32 .00 – 1.46
4 .77 .30 .24 – 1.69
Definite articles
per T-unit
5 .81 .31 .11 – 1.36
100
Figure 21. Mean and SD bars for definite article use (1st panel=raw counts, 2nd panel= counts
per T-unit) – Spontaneous language
Table 30. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Definite Articles
Analysis Contrast groups Results planned comparison Effect size
3 and 4 t (71.2) = -4.24, p = .081 d = .408
4 and 5 t (68.4) = .88, p = .692 d = .021
Elicitation
Task
5 and Adults t (40.0) = -2.95, p < .001 d = 3.418
3 and 4 t (106) = -4.13, p < .001 d = .957Raw counts
4 and 5 t (106) = -1.34, p = .183 d = .290
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.16, p = .033 d = .500Counts per T-
unit
4 and 5 t (106) = -.584, p = .561 d = .161
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.3.7 Plurals
Results from the elicitation task suggested that there was an increasing developmental trend in
the use of plurals across the age groupings (See Figure 22). Three-year-old children produced
47.6 % (SD= 32.6) plurals in obligatory contexts, 4-year-old children produced 77.6% (SD=
22.6), 5-year-old children produced 85.0% (SD= 17.1) and adults produced 98.75% (SD= 3.9)
plurals. This difference was statistically significant [Brown-Forsythe f= (3, 87.6) = 27.6,
101
p<.001]. Post hoc analyses indicated that the source of the difference was between the 3-
year-olds and the 4- and 5-year-olds together. Furthermore, adults performed significantly
better than children on this task [3<(4=5)<Adults]. No differences were found between the
production of the allomorphs /s/ and /es/.
Figure 22. Means and SD for plural use - Elicited language
Results from the language sample, presented in Table 31, indicated that there was an
increasing developmental trend in the production of articles [F (2,106) = 6.54, p=.002]. This
source of the difference was found to exist between 3- and 4-year-old children with no
significant change between 4- and 5-years of age. When the ratio of plurals per T-unit was
used for the analysis, this difference remained significant [F (2,106) = 4.50, p=.013]. Figure
23 illustrates these findings and Table 32 shows the comparison results and effect sizes.
Table 31. Descriptive Statistics for Plurals - Spontaneous Language
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Group Mean SD Range
3 .25 .65 .00 – 3.00
4 .90 1.13 .00 – 4.00
Plural
5 1.24 1.56 .00 – 6.00
3 .01 .03 .00 – .18
4 .04 .05 .00 – .19
Plural per T-unit
5 .04 .05 .00 – .23
Figure 23. Mean and SD bars for plural use (1st panel=raw counts, 2nd panel= counts per T-
unit) – Spontaneous language
Table 32. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Plurals
Analysis Contrast groups Results planned comparison Effect size
3 and 4 t (63.7) = -4.62, p < .001 d = 1.083
4 and 5 t (70.1) = -1.61, p = .113 d = .375
Elicitation
Task
5 and Adults t (42.3) = 4.36, p < .001 d = 1.307
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.34, p = .021 d = .600Raw counts
4 and 5 t (106) = -.539, p = .591 d = .120
3 and 4 t (106) = -2.38, p = .019 d = .719Counts per T-
unit
4 and 5 t (106) = -1.25, p = .211 d = .224
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.3.8 Elicitation Task Total Score
103
A total score for the elicitation task was calculated by adding the correct production of
direct object pronouns, indirect object pronouns, reflexive pronouns, definite articles,
indefinite articles, and plurals. Descriptive statistics for the total task score are presented in
Table 33. There was a statistical significant difference between the groups [Brown-Forsythe
f= (3, 112.8) = 58.3, p< .001]. The maximum possible score was 69. Post hoc analyses
indicated that the source of the difference was between the 3-year-olds and the 4- and 5-year-
olds together. Furthermore, adults performed significantly better than children on this
combination of tasks [3<(4=5)<Adults]. Figure 24 illustrates these findings. Significant
correlations between the total score on the elicitation task and NU-TU, MLTU, SUB-I, GRE-
TU, PRSLP, TVIP raw and standard scores were found when controlling for age. Refer to
Appendix 12 for correlation data.
Table 33. Descriptive Statistics for Total Elicitation Task
Group Mean SD Range
3 22.1 11.3 .00 – 42.00
4 38.0 10.3 15.00 – 54.00
Total Elicitation
Task
5 40.7 10.5 8.00 – 55.00
Adults 61.7 3.5 56.00 – 67.00
Figure 24. Means and SD for the total score on the Elicitation Task
Table 34. Effect Sizes and Planned Comparisons for Total Score on the Elicitation task
104
Contrast Groups Results of Planned Comparison Effect Size
3 and 4 t (72.4) = -6.38, p <.001 d = 1.402
4 and 5 t (69.2) = 1.11, p =.267 d = .259
5 and Adults t (41.1) = -9.87, p < .001 d = 2.985
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
7.3.9 Summary of Results
Section 7.3 presented the findings for usage of direct object pronouns, indirect object
pronouns, reflexive pronouns, adjectives, definite articles, indefinite articles, and plurals
obtained from both the elicitation and the story retelling tasks. The results obtained from the
different tasks were relatively consistent across the various grammatical structures tested. For
elicited language, it was almost always the case that the developmental changes observed
occurred between 3- and 4-years of age, with no additional change between 4- and 5 years of
age. This developmental pattern was seen for direct object pronouns, indirect object pronouns,
reflexive pronouns, adjectives, indefinite articles and plurals. No changes in definite article
use were seen between 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. The adults always performed
significantly better than the children in this study, indicating that the children in these age
groupings had not yet attained adult performance levels for the structures tested. A similar
pattern to the elicited responses was found with respect to the raw counts of grammatical
structures used in spontaneous language. Significant changes always occurred between 3- and
4-years of age, with no developmental changes occurring between 4 and 5 for indirect object
pronouns, reflexive pronouns, adjectives, definite articles, and plurals. There were significant
changes observed between the three age groups for direct object pronouns and indefinite
105
articles, however. Mixed results were found when controlling for story length by using
the grammatical structures per T-unit analyses. Using these measures, no changes were seen
in direct object pronouns, indirect object pronouns, and reflexives between the age groups. For
definite articles, indefinite articles, adjectives and plurals, the changes showed the same
patterns as for the raw count of grammatical structures. Omission was the most common
other response type to the elicitation task for almost all grammatical structures. Table 35
presents a summary of the patterns observed across the language structures across the various
analyses.
Table 35. Summary of Group Comparison Results
Grammatical structure Elicitation task Raw count
Spontaneous
Raw count per
T-unit
Direct object pronouns 3<(4=5)<adults 3 < 4 < 5 3 = 4 = 5
Indirect Object pronouns 3<(4=5)<adults 3 < (4 = 5) 3 = 4 = 5
Reflexive pronouns 3<(4=5)<adults 3 < (4 = 5) 3 = 4 = 5
Adjectives 3<(4=5)<adults 3 < (4 = 5) 3 < (4 = 5)
Definite articles 3=4=5<adults 3 < (4 = 5) 3 < (4 = 5)
Indefinite articles 3<(4=5)<adults 3 < 4 < 5 3 < 4 < 5
Plurals 3<(4=5)<adults 3 < (4 = 5) 3 < (4 = 5)
Note. 3 = 3 year-old children; 4 = 4 year-old children; 5 = 5 year-old children
Table 36 summarizes the overall findings of section 7.3. There are two rows per grammatical
structure in the table. The first row contains the data from the elicitation task and the second
row contains the data obtained from spontaneous language. Mean group averages were used
when no significant difference were found between any two groups. Asterisks (*) were used to
show that the same pattern was found for both spontaneous language raw counts and counts
per T-unit.
106
7.3.10 Discussion of development of grammatical structures
A variety of terms are used interchangeably but nevertheless unsystematically in the
language acquisition literature to refer to the productive use of grammatical structures during
the language development period. More specifically, there are differing interpretations
regarding what constitutes acquisition across various studies. For some researchers,
acquisition is defined as the first productive use of a grammatical structure regardless of
accuracy, while for others, acquisition occurs once a level of 90% accurate production has
been attained. For the purpose of the present investigation, and following Paradis and
Genesee’s position (1997), acquisition is considered as a continuous process that starts when
the child uses a grammatical structure for the first time until the point at which the child is
able to produce the structure in obligatory context with very few errors. This last stage should
closely resemble accuracy levels found in adult production.
From the results of this study it possible to conclude that SS children who are 3-, 4-, and
5- years old are still in the process of acquiring the grammatical structures tested here. There
were differences in performance between the children and the adults on the elicitation task for
each of the grammatical structures examined. Although 4-and 5-year olds were producing the
grammatical structures investigated in this study with high percentages of accuracy, they were
still not performing as accurately as adults on any of these of language tasks. Using adult data
as a maturation goal helped to show that, even in adult production there is still some variation,
as illustrated by the fact that none of the grammatical structures reached 100% accuracy in
Table 36. Summary of Findings for Grammatical Structures
Structure 3 years old 4 years old 5 years old
107
Productive use 32%
in obligatory contexts
Productive use 68%
in obligatory contexts
Direct object
pronouns
1 per story 3 per story 4 per story
Productive use 5% Productive use 25%Indirect object
pronouns
1 per story 2 per story
Productive use 37%
in obligatory contexts
Productive use 63%
in obligatory contexts
Reflexive
pronouns
5 per story 8 per story
Productive use 45% Productive use 50%Indefinite
articles
1 per story* 3 per story* 5 per story *
Productive use 24%
in obligatory contexts
Definite
articles
10 per story* 20 per story* 23 per story *
Productive use 33%
in obligatory
contexts
Productive use 74%
in obligatory contexts
Adjectives
0.8 per story* 3 per story *
Productive use 48%
in obligatory
contexts
Productive use 81.3%
in obligatory contexts
Plurals
.25 per story* 1 per story*
adult production. Child production is in the process of reaching that adult maturational stage,
where some small amount of variation will always have a place. The acquisition process is
thus still ongoing in the population of children sampled and a few more years might be needed
for these grammatical structures to be fully acquired in terms of adult levels of performance.
108
The acquisition process described in this investigation presents data from both elicited
and spontaneous language. Although analysis of spontaneous data has traditionally been used
in the language acquisition literature, this approach has the potential disadvantage that
children may be producing only the grammatical structures that they are comfortable using.
Elicited tasks, on the other hand, create contexts where the use of a grammatical structure is
either obligatory or felicitous. The use of both types of tasks to examine morphosyntactic
acquisition is crucial to describe how children use a specific grammatical structure. For
example, the omission rates of direct object pronouns seen in the 3-year-old children were
only evident when direct object pronouns were elicited. Most of the studies on Spanish
language acquisition that are available include data from either spontaneous or elicited
language. This study stands out from previous Spanish acquisition studies in that it included
data from both sources, thus providing a more robust picture of the acquisition of the
structures of interest to the study across the three groups of children.
The data from the spontaneous language were presented using two measures: a raw count
of grammatical structures and a ratio of counts of grammatical structure per T-unit. These two
measures illustrated two different methodological approaches. Using the first approach based
on raw counts of grammatical structures, one can examine the productive use of a particular
structure to determine whether there is an increasing, decreasing or stable pattern of use across
age groups. Using the second approach, counts per T-unit, one can examine the productive use
of the grammatical structures as it relates to the length of the story. In this sense, the second
approach is a more conservative one because it takes into account the fact that older children
109
typically create longer stories and makes an attempt to control for the variable of story
length in the analysis of the productive use of the grammatical structures.
This investigation described the productive use of the various grammatical structures using
both elicited and spontaneous language across three age groups. The results of this study
provide data that will permit clinicians and researchers to compare the performance of
individual children at ages 3, 4 and 5 to the data obtained in this study in order to make
developmental observations to determine whether the child is a normal, low, or a high
performer with respect to a specific grammatical structure. The results therefore contribute to
the potential of SLPs to make more informed and accurate clinical judgments regarding
individual performance based on more comprehensive developmental information. The
discussion that follows will consider each of the specific structures examined in the study
individually.
Previous research studies have reported that SS children begin to use direct object
pronouns as early as two years of age (Gonzalez, 1978; Shum, Conde & Diaz, 1992). The
current investigation advances the previous research by incorporating information regarding
the development of direct object pronouns in children between 3- and 5-years of age. When
three-year-old children were asked questions that required the obligatory use of direct object
pronouns, they responded with a pronoun 32% of the time compared to 4- and 5-year old
children who produced a direct object pronoun 68% of the time. This is indicative of a
developmental increase in the percentage of direct object use between 3- and 4 year olds.
Although 5-year-olds were producing approximately 70% of obligatory direct object
pronouns, their responses were still not comparable to adult performance at 93% use.
110
Omission rates of direct object pronouns were approximately 22% for 3-year-olds and
13% for 4- and 5-year-olds (See Appendix 7 for other response types to direct object
pronouns). These omission rates are consistent with results reported for Portuguese and
French (Costa-Lobo, 2007; Perez-Leroux et al., 2006). Three- and 4-year-old children had
approximately 12% errors in gender and number agreement and 5 year-old children had about
9%. It is possible that some of the number agreement errors are caused by the dialectal
production of aspirated sounds that form the plural because most errors were found in the
production of singular clitics in place of the plural ones (Miller, 2007). Agreement errors were
still present by age five, which supports the claims made by Merino (1992) that there is still
development in this structure beyond age 5.
From spontaneous language we can conclude that children increasingly use more direct
object pronouns in their speech with age. Three-year olds used one direct object pronoun on
average in spontaneous language, and 3- and 4-year olds used three and four respectively. The
coding of omissions of objects in spontaneous language has been questioned as a reliable
measure (Pirvulescu, 2006). For example, if the child says ‘I am reading’, he/she could be
implying ‘reading’ as the general activity, or ‘reading a book’, which will be then be coded as
an omission of an object. The rates of omission in spontaneous language found in this study
were very low, perhaps for this reason.
The results found in this study for indirect object pronouns and reflexive pronouns were
unique in the literature examining the acquisition of Spanish. These novel results suggested
that 3-, 4-, and 5- year old children in general used very low percentages of indirect object
pronouns as compared to adults. It is important to note that the production of this grammatical
111
structure was not obligatory in the context where it was elicited, but adults nevertheless
preferred to use it 63% of the time. Similarly, very few instances of indirect object pronouns
were found in spontaneous language. Changes in the productive use of indirect object
pronouns in elicited and spontaneous language were significant between 3- and 4-year-olds,
but no significant change occurred at age 5.
Children produced higher rates of reflexive pronouns than indirect object pronouns. Three-
year-old children produced 37% reflexives in obligatory contexts compared to 4- and 5-year-
old children who produced 63%. The children performed in a similar way in spontaneous
language, where they produced 5 reflexive pronouns by age 3 and 8 reflexive pronouns at age
4 and 5. No research is available for comparison purposes for the results of the production of
Spanish reflexive pronouns, making these findings a unique contribution to the literature.
With respect to the correct use of adjectives, the results of this investigation suggested
that there was a developmental pattern between 3- and 4-years of age in the use of adjectives
in both elicited and spontaneous language. No significant changes were observed between 4-
and 5-years of age, but adults used significantly more adjectives than children. When the
children were three years old they had high rates of adjective omission and very few
agreement errors, but as they grew older (4 and 5 years) the omission rates decreased and
there were approximately 5% agreement errors. Number errors, as has been discussed before,
could be caused by either the developing phonological system or by the Spanish dialect used
by the child (Miller, 2007).
The increase in the use of adjectives might be explained by the increase in vocabulary
during the preschool years (Paul, 2001). However, SS children are not only learning new
112
words, but are also learning number and gender agreement. The agreement rates obtained
in the study were high for the 4- and 5-year old children, a finding that supports the findings
of Gonzalez (1978), who found that gender and number inflections on articles, nouns, and
adjectives were present by age 3;6.
The findings for definite and indefinite articles are also of considerable interest. On the
one hand, no large changes in the use of articles between the 3- and 5- year olds were
observed, however the children in the three groups produced considerably fewer articles than
did the adults in elicited language. On the other hand, there was a significant increase in the
productive use of articles from age three to age five in spontaneous language. The general
interpretation is that in fact children are learning the article system, as indicated by their
spontaneous usage, but when forced to produce articles in specific contexts, they continue to
have difficulties in usage and are therefore still in the acquisition stage of this structure.
With respect to indefinite articles, children used an indefinite article in the elicited
obligatory context approximately 50% of the time, as compared to adults who used them 80%.
There were significant changes between 3- and 4- years of age, but this change represented
only a 5% increase in actual production. This suggests that all children performed similarly.
Adults omitted the indefinite article with on average 19% of the time, and children had
omission rates of between 30% and 45%. The use of an indefinite article to answer the
question “What is this?” might not be obligatory, but still there is a high preference, from the
adult language perspective, to use the indefinite article. Thus SS children at age five are still
not performing at adult levels in their use of indefinite articles.
113
The results from spontaneous language are contradictory to this finding in that there
are greater changes in the use of indefinite articles between 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children.
Three-year olds used one indefinite article per story, compared to 4- and 5- year olds who
produced three and five indefinite articles, respectively. These changes remained significant
when the ratio per T-unit measure was used in the calculations. This suggests that the increase
in the use of indefinite articles is independent of the length of the story, which makes this a
more conservative finding than if only the raw counts were different across age groups, as has
been previously discussed.
No differences were found between groups of children in the production of definite
articles, which were produced with an accuracy level of approximately 24%. Adult
performance on this task was at 93%, which was significantly higher than children’s
performance. Analyzing the results presented in Appendix 11, it is clear that a large
percentage of children were producing indefinite articles to complete this task. This suggests
that children are acquiring the article system, but the difference between the definite and
indefinite articles is not yet completely clear. They are in fact producing both types of articles,
but are making errors in using them in obligatory contexts. There was no available research
information in this area for SS speaking children to compare with these results.
Children are producing correct definite articles in their spontaneous speech,
and this production shows development across the three age groups. Three-year-old children
produced about 10 articles per story compared to 4- and 5- year olds who produced 20 and 23,
respectively. These changes remained significant when the ratio per T-units was used for the
analyses. This pattern of development is very similar to the one found for indirect articles,
114
where changes in productive use were more evident in spontaneous language than in
elicited language.
The findings related to articles support previous research by Hernandez-Pina (1984),
Lopez-Ornat (1997) and Montes (1974) who reported that 3-year-old children were producing
a variety of articles, both definite and indefinite. In addition, very few errors of gender and
number substitutions were seen, which is consistent with the findings reported by Hernandez-
Pina (1984), Montrul (2004) and Perez-Pereira (1991).
With respect to the productive use of plurals, the results suggested the there were
significant changes in the correct production of the plural between 3- and 4-year-old children,
with no significant changes between 4- and 5-years of age. Four- and 5-year old children
performed with high percentages of accuracy, but were still not as accurate as adults in their
levels of performance. The use of plurals in their spontaneous language was very limited;
however, this may have been related to the fact that the story used as a model for the task also
contained few instances of plurals.
No differences were found between the use of the Spanish plural allomorph /s/ and /es/.
These results therefore do not support the findings reported by Kernan and Blount (1966),
who found differences in the allomorph production where the allomorph /s/ was acquired
earlier than the allomorph /es/. This might be explained by the fact that this study took into
account phonological differences and development. For example, the singular form of the
word flower is ‘flor’. The plural inflection requires the addition of the allomorph /es/.
Children were not penalized if they said ‘flore’ since this production clearly indicates the
change from singular to plural and is appropriate in the dialect of Spanish they regularly
115
speak. In general, it seems that the plural is used in elicited language with a high level of
accuracy by about 4 years of age.
The data from the elicitation task for all grammatical structures does not support the
previously stated hypothesis that five-year old children’s performance on the elicitation task
for articles, plurals, adjectives and clitic pronouns would resemble adult’s performance on
these same structures. There was no construction where the 5-year-old children were
performing at the same level as adults in the elicitation task, as indicated by the statistically
significant differences between the child and the adult groupings. Additional time may be
needed for these structures to be acquired to adult levels. There is still a lot of variability in the
children’s performance on the elicitation task as compared to the variability in adult
performance levels. Child language data has always been characterized as highly variable,
and individual differences among children go a long way in explaining this phenomenon.
The data from elicited and spontaneous language showed an important developmental
change between 3- and 4-years of age. This change was present for all the structures with the
exception of definite article use in elicited language. These findings support Montes’ (1974)
claim regarding Spanish-development in Colombian children, which stated that the biggest
change in morphological acquisition occurred between 3 and 4 years of age.
The results of this investigation provide important insights into two methodological issues
when investigating language acquisition in young children. The first concerns the importance
of using language elicitation tasks to force the production of grammatical structures that might
otherwise go unnoticed in spontaneous language. Errors that were not evident in spontaneous
language became very obvious when a specific structure was probed and elicited. Second,
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three-year-olds produced a number of unintelligible responses, as shown in Appendices 6
to 10; therefore, the recording of their productions for both spontaneous and elicited language
was absolutely essential. Using the recordings and obtaining a high degree of transcription and
coding reliability helps in determining the accuracy of the recorded data and reduces
measurement error. For studies examining language acquisition in young children, such
methodological rigour is essential if the results are to be reliable and clinically relevant.
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8. IMPLICATIONS AND FURTHER DIRECTIONS
This investigation examined specific aspects of morphosyntactic development in 3-, 4-,
and 5-year-old monolingual Spanish-speaking children living in Cali, Colombia. The novel
data for the developmental language measures and the acquisition of clitic pronouns, articles,
adjectives and plurals for Spanish obtained in the study were presented and discussed in the
previous chapter. This information was collected in order to describe and characterize the
language acquisition process for a relatively large sample of Spanish-speaking children during
their preschool years. Furthermore, this investigation provides important insights into the
development of language assessment batteries for languages where insufficient normative
information is currently available. The data from this investigation may be used to respond to
several important methodological and clinical questions related to language assessment and
language acquisition in Spanish.
This final section will address five main questions for which the study has important
implications. These are: 1) Are there any identifiable stages of morphosyntactic language
development in Spanish-speaking children during the preschool years? 2) Would the language
battery chosen for this study be adequate for conducting a comprehensive Spanish language
assessment? 3) To what extent is the information provided by this investigation applicable to
the language assessment of Spanish-speaking children at the present time? 4) What do the
results of this investigation tell us about language acquisition in other romance languages? 5)
How does one build up a language assessment battery for a language for which insufficient
developmental information is available?
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With respect to the first question, the data from this investigation showed two
descriptive developmental stages that were clearly defined by the statistical analyses of
performance across the age groups on the various language tasks. The first descriptive
developmental stage was at 3 years of age. Children at this age were productively using
language and exploring the production of the grammatical structures under examination. The
omission of grammatical structures characterized this stage as the most prominent
grammatical error. The children produced stories with approximately 15 T-units and about
five words per T-unit, but with very few dependent clauses.
The second stage identified by this investigation was at ages four and five. Very few
significant differences were found between 4- and 5-year olds, which indicated that the
children in these age groups had very similar performance on the tasks designed for this study.
Children at this stage produced most of the grammatical structures investigated with moderate
percentages of accuracy, but were still not comparable with adult production accuracy rates.
As omission errors reduced in these age groupings, errors of substitution became more
frequent as compared to the 3-year olds. Children produced stories with about 26 T-units and
6 and 7 words per T unit. In general, 4- and 5-year-old children performed better than 3-year-
olds on almost every language structure investigated, but still not at the accuracy levels
attained by the adults.
Question 2 addressed the adequacy of the language battery chosen for this study in
conducting an accurate and comprehensive Spanish language assessment of children in the
target age range. The inclusion of a standardized vocabulary test, a parental report of speech
and language problems, a language sample and a series of elicited language tasks made it
119
possible to find developmental differences between two of the three age groupings and to
provide valuable information for language assessment. Recall that both environmental and
norm-referenced information are essential to provide adequate language assessments, as
identified by Paul (2001). The language battery developed for this study included
environmental information from the parent questionnaires, and norm-referenced information
from three additional sources: a standardized vocabulary test, a spontaneous language sample
and an elicited language task. This battery meets the requirements proposed by Paul (2003)
and contributes to existing measures for the assessment of Spanish-speaking children. The
combination of these four sources of information has potential utility for the identification of
language disorders in children. This battery would need to be validated with a sample of
children with known language disorders to examine its applicability as a diagnostic tool.
Furthermore, the measures obtained from the various tasks showed strong correlational
patterns, which suggested that the measures appear to be consistent in measuring similar
constructs. The developmental language measures obtained from the spontaneous language
samples showed significant correlations among each other. Number of T-units and mean
length of T-units were moderately correlated, which meant that the more utterances a child
used to retell a story, the longer the utterances the child produced. Similarly, mean length of
T-units and subordination index were highly correlated, which was indeed expected since it is
logical to assume that the more subordination exists in a sentence the longer this sentence
would be.
Interestingly, grammatical errors per T-unit did not correlate with any of the previous
developmental language measures. The fact that grammatical errors per T-unit did not show
120
significant correlations with the other spontaneous developmental language measures
suggested that the length or complexity of a story had no relationship to overall
grammaticality. However, grammatical errors per T-units did negatively correlate with the
total score of the elicitation task and the raw score on the TVIP. The more errors per T-unit a
child produced, the fewer words he/she identified on the vocabulary task, and the lower score
he/she obtained on the elicitation task. Grammatical errors per T-unit did not show
developmental changes across age groups. It therefore appears that neither length, complexity,
or age are related to the rate of production of errors. This appears to be a novel finding in the
child language acquisition literature across languages. Further research will be needed to
determine its clinical utility and overall implications.
The findings regarding grammatical errors per T-units have important clinical and
research implications. There is a lot of discussion in both the research and clinical fields as to
whether language disordered children show a delay or a true difference in their patterns of
language development (see Leonard 1998 for a complete review of this topic). It has been
suggested that a measure of grammatical errors per T-unit has clinical value in the
identification of SS children with language disorders (Restrepo, 1998). The results of this
investigation suggest that this measure was not sensitive to changes in development, at least
with respect to the population and age groups sampled. This seems to suggest that children do
not produce more or less errors as they grow older, and therefore, the high rates of errors
found in SS children with SLI are truly characteristic of the language disorder per se and are
not indicative of a delay in language development in these children. Furthermore, it is possible
121
that SS children with specific language disorders may be delayed in some aspects (e.g.,
MLTU) and deviant in other aspects of the normal development (e.g., grammatical errors per
T-unit). Because this investigation did not include a group of previously identified children
with language disorders, these suggestions are hypothetical. Further research would be needed
to confirm these observations.
The total score on the elicitation task showed significant correlations with most of the
other measures investigated in this study. This score was positively correlated with NU-TU,
MLTU, and SUB-I, and negatively correlated with GRE-TU. In other words, the higher the
score on the elicitation task a child obtained, the fewer grammatical errors that child produced
spontaneously and the longer and more complex stories he/she produced. Similarly, the total
score on the elicitation task showed strong correlations with the both the raw and the
standardized score of the TVIP, suggesting that grammatical and vocabulary development
might be interrelated, as it has been suggested by previous research(eg., Tomasello, 2001).
Finally, the total score on the elicitation task also correlated with the PRSLP (Parental Report
of Speech and Language Problems). The correlations shown between the total score on the
elicitation task and NU-TU, MLTU, SUB-I, GRE-TU, PRSLP, and TVIP suggest that the total
score on the elicitation task might potentially be used to represent and characterize the
language abilities of an individual child. It is possible that the total score on the elicitation
task might have clinical applications as a diagnostic tool to identify children with speech and
language problems. This total score correlates with various dimensions of language related to
vocabulary, length and complexity of spontaneous speech, grammaticality, and parental report
of speech and language problems. Further research will be needed to explore the potential use
122
of the elicitation task as a diagnostic tool for the identification of language disorders in
children at the ages represented in the study.
The data suggested that vocabulary and morphosyntax are interrelated during
development. The TVIP raw score showed moderate positive correlations with NU-TU,
MLTU and SUB- and a small negative correlation with GRE-TU. The more words a child
knows the longer and more complex the stories he/she will produce. Similarly, the TVIP raw
score showed a high correlation with the total score of the elicitation task. The more words a
child knows the more correct their grammatical productions are when compared to adult
standards. This shows the general association between grammar and vocabulary that has been
widely discussed in the language literature by such researchers as Hayiou-Thomas, Kovas,
Harlaar, Bishop, Dale, & Plomin (2006). However, these data can also be used to argue for the
specificity of the relationship between grammar and vocabulary. In fact, some particular
grammatical structures are more associated with vocabulary than others, such as is the case of
direct object pronouns, which showed stronger correlations with vocabulary than with articles
(Castilla, Perez-Leroux, & Eriks-Brophy, 2007).
The language battery chosen for this investigation initially proved to be adequate for
Spanish language assessment because it was sensitive enough to find language developmental
differences among preschool Spanish-speaking children. However, further validation and
testing would be required to corroborate these findings. The battery used in this investigation
included tasks targeting both environmental and normative information, which are essential
for the adequate assessment of language abilities. Furthermore, the measures showed that they
were highly associated, which might suggest that in fact they were measuring the same
123
construct (e.g., language abilities). The only task that did not seem to provide important
information for language assessment was the Parent Report of Family History of Speech and
Language Problems (Restrepo, 1998). This task was rather long to complete. Further
adaptations to this task should be made to adjust the length and complexity of the required
responses. Researchers and clinicians interested in using this battery might consider the
possibility of not including the Family History of Speech and Language Problems
Questionnaire.
This language battery could be used with most Spanish dialects. The grammatical
structures evaluated in this study are present and stable in all Spanish dialects with very few
exceptions. One of the exceptions is for the Andean Spanish and Basque Spanish, both
contact languages, where the omission of the clitic pronouns is acceptable (Stewart, 1999).
Another variation related to direct object pronouns is Leismo, which is characteristic of
Iberian Spanish. Leismo is the use of the object pronoun /le/ instead of the pronoun /lo/. No
dialectal variation has been reported for articles, indirect object pronouns, reflexive, or
adjectives. In general, it is possible to conclude that this investigation covers the generality of
the grammatical structures and could be applied to the majority of Spanish dialects. The use of
the direct object pronoun section of the elicitation task might be restricted for Andean and
Basque variations of Spanish, and could be modified for the Iberian Spanish. As a general
approach it seems better to target the generalities of the language, rather than targeting the
specificities of one dialect in order to cover a greater population. For example, it might better
to have a test that could be applicable to the majority of dialects, and where adaptations can be
made, than to have a test that would only be applicable to a specific dialect.
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Question 3 addressed how an SLP might use the data provided in this investigation
for the language assessment of Spanish-speaking children. Normative standards are required
for the adequate identification of language deficits. Clinicians might use the normative
standards that emerged from this study by comparing the language skills of a particular child
to the language skills of other children within a similar chronological age. Speech-language
pathologists might use the means and standard deviations obtained from the various
grammatical structures and language measures to identify whether a child is presenting with a
‘language deficit’. For example, consider the case of a 4-year-old SS child who has a MLTU
of 4.0 on a narrative produced using the same story retelling task as in this study. Using the
results of this investigation, it is possible to conclude that this child is performing 1.5 standard
deviations below the mean of the 4-year-old group. This finding places the child on the low
end of the distribution and suggests that he/she could be identified as a low performer in this
task. Similarly, the data from this investigation could be use to conclude that a 3-year-old
child who omitted 20% of direct objects on the elicitation task is performing at the same level
as most of the children in her/his age group. Although the data from this investigation are
limited in that they only included 116 Spanish-speaking children, they represent an important
step in the characterization of normal development and, perhaps, disordered language in
Spanish-speaking populations and provide important new information regarding these abilities
for the age groups studied.
Mean length of T-units and grammatical errors per T-units have been suggested by some
researchers to be the most reliable measures to identify SS children with language disorders
(Gutierrez-Clellen, et al., 2000; Restrepo, 1998; Simon-Cereijido & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2007).
125
This study provides novel data to characterize these two measures at the ages of three,
four, and five. This is the first known study to cover these three age groups. The use of the
means and standard deviations obtained in this study may assist clinicians and researchers in
the identification of potential language disorders in SS children.
Question 4 concerns how the results of this investigation are related to the acquisition of
language in other Romance languages. In preliminary chapters of this dissertation, it was
argued that Italian, French and Spanish have commonalities regarding vulnerable domains of
disordered language. Previous research has suggested that object pronouns seemed to be
vulnerable to errors for Spanish and Italian, and articles seemed to be vulnerable for Italian
and Spanish. The current investigation elaborated on these findings and found that these areas
of vulnerability also exist for normally developing Spanish-speaking children, based on the
population and age range sampled. These structures were not found to be completely acquired
by the older children in this investigation, which might suggest that they are developmentally
complex. This might imply that the equivalent structures may have not been fully acquired by
normally developing 5-year-old children who are learning Italian and French as first language.
It is logical to assume that these structures will also be challenging for children with SLI. This
investigation did not specifically include children with language disorders, so definitive
conclusions regarding disordered language are beyond the scope of this discussion. These
suggestions are speculative, but might offer insights regarding normal and disordered
language development in Italian and French. Cross linguistic research on the developmental
patterns of these grammatical structures will expand our knowledge of the normal and
disordered acquisition of Romance languages.
126
Question 5 concerns the task of constructing a language assessment battery in a
language for which limited developmental information exists. This is a challenging task when
limited research is available on the language of interest. Fortunately for Spanish, some
information on the grammatical difficulties that children with SLI present with was available
in the literature. Additional information from Italian and French supported the process of
deciding which grammatical structures could be sensitive to changes in language development
for children speaking Romance languages. Language typology, then, was a decisive factor for
the design of this investigation. This is a methodological strength of the research. Because the
language assessment battery was designed to be based on the characteristics of Spanish, in
contrast to an adaptation or translation of an English-test, clear developmental patterns
emerged in the findings. An adaptation of an existing measure developed for English, for
example, might not have been able to detect such developmental differences as they would not
have focused on linguistic structures specific to the normal acquisition of Spanish.
A rigorous design process was followed to create the elicitation task developed for this
study. The cultural and age appropriateness of the task was a priority during the design
process. Special considerations were taken to choose the vocabulary for the task. Only words
that were used in the MacArthur Inventario del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas
(Jackson-Maldonado, et al., 2003) were selected for the elicitation task to ensure that
advanced vocabulary was not a confounding issue when responding to the task. Once the
questions to elicit the grammatical structures were designed, a graphic designer from Cali,
Colombia, was contacted to illustrate the questions. Contacting a person from within
Colombia, and more specifically Cali, guaranteed that the pictures were in line with the
127
cultural community where the test was going to be administered. Pilot testing with
Colombian adults confirmed that the test was targeting the grammatical structures of interest
and that the test was culturally appropriate. Additional pilot testing with a small group of SS
children reconfirmed these findings.
The process of developing the story-retelling task also followed a careful design. Once
again, special considerations for age and cultural appropriateness of the task were taken.
Although the wordless storybook ‘Frog Goes to Dinner’ is a North American book, it has been
widely used in cross-linguistic research. The script was written by the author of this
dissertation who is a native Spanish-speaker from Cali, Colombia, to maximize the possibility
that the story was culturally appropriate. The script included all the grammatical structures of
interest and a high level of complexity to model the language for the children, thus ensuring
that the structures would be elicited if they were in the developmental stage of the child.
Further methodological considerations were also given to the strenuous work of
transcribing and coding both the language samples and the responses to the elicitation task.
This task required an average of 6 hours per child, which resulted in approximately 800 hours
for the total sample of children, excluding the time needed to calculate reliability.
Methodologically, it was very important to create a clear coding protocol for both the
spontaneous and elicited tasks that guaranteed the uniformity of the data. The meticulous
process of transcribing and coding the samples made it possible to obtain high percentages of
agreement and to reduce measurement error, resulting in data that showed developmental
differences between the groups.
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8.1 Limitations
This investigation has some limitations related to the generalization of the results that are
important to consider. First of all, although the sample is larger than in most language
acquisition studies, an even larger sample size would be required in order to be consistent with
a true normative study. The distribution would be more stable with the inclusion of more
children in further normative investigations. Another limitation of this investigation is that it
is not possible to produce a definitive statement regarding the language abilities of the
children who were low performers on the various language tasks administered. This research
was not conceived to identify language disorders in the sample population but rather to
describe normal development. The line between these two concepts is very narrow and
somewhat arbitrary. Once normal development is identified, it is possible to also identify what
level of performance lies below the normal range. However, the methodology employed for
this research did not include the development of such statements. Finally, the results of this
study would not be applicable to children who are on the extremes of the social economic
status in Colombia, because representative children from Level 1 and Level 6 were not
included in the data collection. An additional limitation regarding the usefulness of the
normative information for the language measures is the time required for transcription and
analysis. Clinicians who may want to use information obtained from the developmental
measures would have to spend approximately two to three hours on the transcription and
analysis of the language sample per child. This activity is labor intensive, and this could be a
decisive factor in the eventual clinical utility of the measures.
129
8.2 Further directions
While it was beyond the scope of the current research to apply the obtained findings to
the identification of low performing children with potential language disorders, such
investigations should be carried out, beginning perhaps with an examination of the low
performing children who participated in this study. The relationships among the scores on the
various language measures obtained from those children who scored in the lowest range of the
distribution should be examined in order to determine if any single measure or group of
measures reliably identified and discriminated these low performers from the rest of the
group. The potential of the language tasks developed for this study to identify children with
language disorders should also be further explored using adequate research protocols and
larger samples of children. The elicitation task and the developmental language measures
could be used in Discriminant Analyses to explore their specificity and sensitivity of the tasks
for the diagnosis of language disorders in Spanish-speaking children for the age range
examined.
Further normative information could be obtained through the inclusion of larger sample
sizes and including older children in order to determine at what age children perform as adults
in the production of the various grammatical structures of interest to this study. This type of
information is in great demand for both clinical assessment and in research. This would
clearly require intensive work, especially with respect to the reliable transcription and coding
of language samples.
130
8.3 Contributions
The results of this investigation further the research related to language development
of monolingual and Spanish-speaking children. These data are unique in that they cover the
preschool years from age three to five for monolingual children. Another unique characteristic
is that this study included data from both spontaneous and elicited language, which provided a
more complete context to describe the language acquisition of Spanish-speaking children.
Although many gaps remain, this study has extended the knowledge base of Spanish-language
acquisition and has filled in many gaps regarding language development for SS children.
This study stands out from all previous research on Spanish acquisition in that in
included a fairly large sample size compared to most of the research on the acquisition
literature. This study was carefully designed to target the characteristics of Spanish
morphosyntax rather than being based on adaptations of English language tasks. Cultural and
linguistic considerations were always taken into account in order to create a unique language
assessment battery that permitted the characterization of the morphosyntactic development of
Spanish-speaking preschool children.
The results of this investigation also advance the existing research related to Romance
languages. In the same way that this research was informed by characteristics of disordered
language in Italian and French, researchers interested in Romance languages could apply the
data provided in this dissertation to design assessment protocols and to make cross linguistic
analyses of normal versus disordered acquisition patterns. The developmental patterns found
for clitic pronouns and articles, for instance, might be of specific interest to researchers
conducting investigations on Italian and French because these grammatical structures were
131
found to be problematic for IS and FS children with SLI. Language typology not only
predetermines vulnerable grammatical domains in SLI but also guides the best assessment
practices for examining language acquisition.
The purpose of this study was aligned with research that has been conducted in French
(Thordardottir, 2005) that tries to close the gap between languages with large amounts of
research, such as English, and languages where research in language acquisition is just
emerging, such as French and Spanish. Further efforts will be needed to keep advancing this
area, but the growing population of bilingual children will certainly help to establish the
necessity of continuing the investigation of monolingual and bilingual development in
minority language children.
This investigation may benefit professionals, families and children in various ways.
Professionals such as speech-language pathologists, teachers, and bilingual educators, among
others, may be able to apply the findings from this study to their students and/or case loads to
describe the language skills of their children. Families may have better access to professionals
who are qualified and who have the necessary normative information to make accurate and
fair diagnoses. Children with and without language disorders may then have access to better
services that will enable them to advance in their language development and establish the
solid language base required to be successful in the school age learning tasks that will come in
their way.
132
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140
Appendix 1. Parent questionnaire (Spanish version)
Cuestionario para la familia Fecha: ___/___/___ Code:_________ Fecha de nacimiento del
niño(a): ___/___/___ Edad del niño(a): __ Nombre del niño(a): ______________
Nombre del informante: ____________ Relación con el niño(a):
__________________
Opinión de la familia el niño(a) tiene problemas del habla o del lenguaje
1. En comparación con otros niños de la misma edad piensa usted que su niño(a) tiene
problemas expresándose o haciéndose entender (entendido)? sí no
2. En comparación con otros niños de la misma edad piensa usted que su niño(a) tiene
problemas del habla? sí no
3. Piensan su familia o amigos que su niño(a) está atrazado/a en su lenguaje? sí no
4. Para su edad o en comparación con otros niños, tiene su niño(a) problemas
diciendo frases correctas? sí no
5. Piensan su familia o amigos que su niño(a) es difícil de entender? sí no
6. Para su edad, dice su niño(a) frases muy cortas? sí no
7. Piensa usted que su niño(a) tiene problemas con la gramática?
(errores en sus frases) sí no
8. Cuando su niño(a) habla de la misma persona tiene dificultad usando el pronombre
correcto como él, ella, ellos? sí no
9. Cuando su niño(a) habla de algo que ha pasado, tiene su niño(a) problemas explicando
cuándo las cosas ocurrieron, o usa palabras en distintos tiempos? Por ejemplo, hablando
de ayer usa "habla" en vez de "habló" sí no
10. Dice su niño frases correctas casi todo el tiempo? sí no
11. Cuando su niño(a) habla, tiene problemas diferenciando si está hablando de un
hombre o una mujer? sí no
12. En comparación con otros niños de su misma edad, usa su niño(a) muchas palabras muy
generales poco descriptivas como esa cosa, esta cosa? sí no
13. Tiene su niño(a) problemas encontrando las palabras exactas para expresarse? sí no
14. Tiene su niño(a) problemas explicando o describiendo cosas? sí no
15. Es difícil para su niño decirle que ha hecho durante el día? sí no
141
16. Se siente su niño frustrado porque no puede hablar bien? sí no
17. Tienen ustedes o los hermanos del niño(a) que repetirle lo que le dicen con más frecuencia
que a otros niños? sí no
18. Tiene usted que repetirle a su niño(a) instrucciones o preguntas más que a
otros niños? sí no
19. Entiende su niño casi todo lo que la gente le dice? sí no
20. Piensa que su niño(a) tiene problemas aprendiendo palabras nuevas? sí no
21. En comparación con otros niños de su misma edad, es difícil para su niño(a)
aprender ideas (conceptos) nuevas(os)? sí no
22. En comparación con otros niños de su misma edad, tiene su niño un vocabulario muy
bajito o limitado? sí no
23. Piensa usted que su niño(a) tiene un problema de aprendizaje? sí no
24. Tiene su niño(a) dislexia? (dificultad con la lectura y escritura) sí no
25. Para su edad, tiene su niño(a) problemas poniendo atención por mucho tiempo? sí no
26. Es su niño(a) hiperactivo/a? sí no
27. Le da trabajo a su niño(a) atender a una actividad o juego? sí no
28. Para su edad, tiene su niño(a) problemas pronunciando palabras? sí no
29. Es la pronunciación de su niño fácil de entender? sí no
Historia de problemas del habla y lenguaje en la familia
Alguien en su familia ha tenido o tiene Hermanos Papá Mamá Par/pad Par/mad
30. desarrollo de lenguaje normal sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
31. problemas de atención o hiperactividad sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
32. dificultad en la escuela sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
33. dislexia o problemas aprendiendo a leer sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
34. problemas del habla o de pronunciación sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
35. problemas de lenguaje en sus frases, palabra sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
36. clases de educación especial sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
142
37. terapia del habla o lenguaje sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
38. un programa para niños con problemas de aprendizaje, del habla o lenguaje
sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
39. después de los 3 años de edad, problemas omitiendo
palabras o partes de palabras en sus frases sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
40. problemas diciendo frases correctas sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
41. problemas haciéndose entender sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
42. problemas expresando ideas con palabras sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
43. problemas siguiendo instrucciones sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
44. problemas entendiendo preguntas sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
45. problemas entendiendo lo que se le dice sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
46. problemas produciendo ciertos sonidos sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
47. problemas leyendo o aprendiendo a leer sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
48. tartamudea (después de los 4 años de edad) sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
49. repitió uno o mas años en la escuela sí no sí no sí no sí no sí no
Comments:
143
Appendix 2. Parent Questionnaire (English version)
Today's date: ____Code :____Date of Birth __/__/__ Age of the child:
Child’s name: _________ Name of the informant ________Your relation to the child: ____
Family's opinion if the child has speech or language problems
1. In comparison with other children of the same age, do you think that your child has
problems expressing him/herself or being understood?
yes no
2. In comparison with children of the same age, do you think that your child has speech
problems? yes no
3. Do you family or friends think that your child is delayed in language? yes no
4. For his age or in comparison with other children, does your child have difficulty
producing correct phrases? yes no
5. Do your family or friends think that your child is difficult to understand? yes no
6. For his age, does your child produce very short phrases? yes no
7. Do you think that your child has problems with his/her grammar? yes no
8. When your child talks about the same person, does he/she have difficulty using
he correct pronoun like he, she, they all the time in his/her conversation? yes no
9. When your child talks about something that happened, does he/she have difficulty
explaining when this happened or uses words in different times? For example, talking
about yesterday the child say "falls" instead of "fell" yes no
10. Does you child use correct phrases almost all the time? yes no
11. When your child talks, does he/she have difficulty differentiating whether he/she
is talking about a man or a woman? yes no
12. In comparison with other children of the same age, does your child use many words that
are too general and not descriptive such as this, that, thing yes no
13. Does your child have difficulty finding the exact words to express him/herself? yes no
14. Does your child have difficulty explaining or describing things? yes no
15. Is it difficult for your child to tell you what he/she did during the day? yes no
16. Is your child frustrated because he/she can not talk well? yes no
144
17. Do you or your child's siblings have to repeat what you say to him or her with more
frequency than to other children? yes no
18. Do you have to repeat questions or directions to your child more than to other children?
yes no
19. Does your child understand most of what he/she is told? yes no
20. Do you think that your child has difficulty learning new words? yes no
21. In comparison with children of the same age, is it difficult for your child to learn new
ideas? yes no
22. In comparison with children of the same age, does your child have a very low or limited
vocabulary? yes no
23. Do you think that your child has a learning problem? yes no
24. Does your child have dyslexia? yes no
25. For his age, does your child have difficulty paying attention for a long period? yes no
26. Is your child hyperactive? yes no
27. Does your child have difficulty attending to an activity or game? yes no
28. For his age, does your child have difficulty pronouncing words? yes no
29. Is your child's pronunciation easy to understand? yes no
History of speech and language problems in the family
Has or had any of the child's relative any of the following problems?
bro/sist father mother par/fath par/moth
30. normal language development yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
31. problems of attention yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
32. difficulties in school or learning yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
33. dyslexia or a problem learning to read yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
34. speech or pronunciation problems yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
35. language problems, like in phrases, words, and grammar
yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
36. special education classes yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
37. speech and language therapy yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
145
38. program for children with speech, language or learning problems
yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
39. omits words or parts of words in his/her phrases after age 3
yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
40. problems producing correct sentences yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
41. problems making his/herself understood yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
42. problems expressing ideas with words yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
43. problems following directions yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
44. problems understanding questions yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
45. problems understanding what he/she is told
yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
46. problems producing certain sounds yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
47. problems reading or learning to read yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
48. stuttering after 4 years of age yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
49. repeated one or more grades yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
Comment
146
Appendix 3. Story Retelling Task Script
Pag. LA RANA SALE A CENAR
1 Había una vez un niño que tenía tres mascotas: el perro, la tortuga y la rana saltarina.
Los cuatro pasaban mucho tiempo juntos
y se divertían.
Una noche el niño se preparaba para salir a comer con su familia.
Las mascotas estaban muy tristes porque el niño no las podía llevar con el.
2 Cuando el niño se estaba despidiendo del perro y la tortuga, la rana saltarina dio un
brinco
y se escondió en la chaqueta.
3 El niño se fue sin darse cuenta que la rana estaba en su bolsillo.
4 - 5 La familia llego a un restaurante muy bonito y elegante donde todas las personas
estaban vestidas para la ocasión.
6 - 7 Mientras el mesero les preguntaba que querían comer, la rana decidió dar un paseo.
Miró a su alrededor
y dió un gran brinco.
8 La rana cayó dentro del saxofón.
Todos se preguntaban porque el saxofón sonaba tan feo
“No se pero voy a revisarlo”, dijo el músico.
9 En ese momento suas la rana le cayó justo en la cara.
El músico sorprendido y asustado se fue para atrás
y cayo dentro del tambor
y lo rompió.
10-11 Los músicos quedaron confundidos sin saber que paso.
Solo vieron algo verde que volaba.
La rana saltarina aprovecho la confusión
y dio un gran salto cayendo en un plato de ensalada.
12-13 Resulta que la ensalada donde estaba la ranita iba para una señora muy elegante.
Cuando empezó a comer Suaz! Se encontró ala ranita.
14-15 “auxilio auxilio hay una rana en mi plato”.
Y la rana brinco de nuevo para escaparse cayendo en una copa de un señor gordo y
de bigote.
17 Al tomar el agua el señor, la rana salto de la copa
y mua beso al señor en la nariz.
18 “Con que aquí estas rana” dijo el mesero.
“Todo este desorden es por tu culpa”.
20
–21
La agarro de las patas para sacarla del restaurante.
“no puede ser,
es mi rana,
que hace aquí?” dijo el niño.
22 -
23
“Señor, señor, no se la lleve por favor,
es mi amiga la rana” dijo el niño.
147
La familia lo miraba muy confundidos y enojados.
“En este restaurante no nos gusta tener rana.
Llévensela inmediatamente”. Dijo el mesero muy enfadado.
25-
26
Al regresar a casa todos estaban enojados porque la rana daño la noche.
La ranita se sintió muy mal al darse cuenta que los había molestado con su travesura.
27
–28
“tu y tu dichosa rana.
Llévatela ahora mismo para tu cuarto” Dijo el papa.
El perro y la tortuga no entendían que pasaba.
29 Cuando llegaron al cuarto recordaron todas la travesuras de la rana: el saxofón, el
tambor, la ensalada, la copa y el beso.
Todo había sido muy chistoso.
El niño y la rana se rieron sin parar.
Y colorin coloradoo este cuanto se ha acabo.
148
Appendix 4. Language Sample Coding Scheme
Table 1. Coding Scheme for T-unitsName Code Definition and examples
T-unit [TU] ! Any main clause, and all its subordinate clauses and modifiers
! An utterance that contains a conjugated verb and a main idea
! If an utterance is interrupted, abandoned, or has unintelligible speech, it
is NOT a TU
! All clauses coordinated by and, but, so, and then are coded as separate (y,
pero, entonces, despues)
! One word responses with one infinitive verb is not a TU
" estaba aca[TU].
" le cayo la rana en la cara [TU].
" entonces la rana se divirtió[TU].
" la rana se despido porque se iba a ir con el niño[TU].
! When reported speech is used, the first clause of the reported speech is
included in the main clause
" entonces el[EL] niño dijo "hay pero esta es mi rana"[TU].
! If additional clauses are attached, one new TU is coded
" entonces el[EL] niño dijo "hay pero esta es mi rana"[TU] “No se la
lleve”[TU].
Number of clauses [1]
[2]
[3]
! Clauses are counted by the number of conjugated verbs in each TU
" y entonces +la[LAC] vio[TU][1].
" entonces el[EL] niño dijo "hay pero esta es mi rana"[TU][2].
" y las mascotas de el estaban muy tristes porque no las podía llevar
porque alla habían señores bravos[TU][3].
Direct Object [OD] Used when there is an object following a potential transitive verb
" y entonces el niño miro la rana
Table 2. Word CodesName Code Examples
Definite feminine
singular article
[LA] " la[LA] señora estaba mareada
Definite masculine
singular article
[EL]
[DEL]
[AL]
" y rompió el[el] tambor
" se fueron en el carro del[DEL] señor
" y le dio un beso al[AL] señor
Definite feminine
plural article
[LAS] " las[LAS] mascotas estaban tristes
Definite masculine
plural article
[LOS] " estaba jugando con los[LOS] animales
Indefinite
masculine singular
article
[UN] " había un[UN] niño que se preparaba para ir aun restaurante
Indefinite feminine
singular article
[UNA] " y entonces se encontró con una[UNA] señora
Indefinite
masculine plural
article
[UNOS] " El niño vio unos[unos] animales
Indefinite feminine
plural article
[UNAS] " y después en el restaurante el niño miro unas[UNAS] cosas
149
plural article
Plural nouns [S]
[ES]
" habían dos ranas[S]
" estaba jugando con los animales[ES]
NOTE: the clitic at the end of the verb is separated from the verb and coded as a separate clitic
Reflexive pronoun
Pseudo-reflexive
[RX]
[X]
Used when a true reflexive is use
" El niño se baño
Used when a there is an obligatory reflexive verbs that does not imply
reflexivity
" el niño se quedo solo
Indirect clitic
pronoun singular
[LE] " le[LE] dio un beso en la nariz
Indirect clitic
pronoun plural
[LES] " les dijo adiós a los animales
Direct object
pronoun femenine
singular
[LAC] " estaba buscando la[LAC]
" la[LAC] queria traer
Direct object
pronoun masculine
singular
[LO] " estaba besando lo[LO]
" lo[LO] beso
Direct object
pronoun femenine
plural
[LASC] " las[LASC] queria traer
" estaba buscando las[LASC]
Direct object
pronoun masculine
plural
[LOSC] " estaba empujando los[LOSC]
" los[LOSC] empujo
Adjectives " y la mama estaba feliz[ADJ]
" le dio un pico al señor gigante[ADJ]
Table 3. Utterance Error CodesName Code Examples
Abandoned
utterance
> Speaker stops in mid-utterance
" Yo tengo una>
Interrupted
utterance
^ Speaker is interrupted before completing utterance
" Yo tengo una^
Mazes () False starts, repetitions and repairs.
" El carro (tiene) tiene gasolina
Unintelligible
utterance
XX Transcriber cannot understand what speaker is saying. X for each word not
understood.
" El carro X gasolina
" El carro XX
XXX for a complete sentence not understood
Character voice ‘’ ‘’ ! Is when the speaker takes on the character and voice of the person in the
story.
" y el niño le dijo “esa es mi rana’’
" y la señora grito “hay una rana en mi plato”
Table 4. Word Error CodesName Code Examples
Grammatical error [GE] Used when no other codes work to define grammatical errors.
" la tortuga y la rana se fueron salil [GE]
Error Word Added [EW:add] Used when the utterance has an extra word added to it.
" y rompio de[EW-ADD] el tambor
150
" ellos pasearon en[EW-ADD] esa noche.
Object ommision [OO] Used when there is a potential transitive verb without an object
" y cogio.
" La rana empujo
Articles
Article omission [A-:] " daño [A-:el] plato
" [A-:la] rana salto
" donde esta [A-:la] rana
Article gender
substitution
[A/G:] " y luego el señor cogio a la rana de los[A/G:las] patas
" esta la[A/;EL] niño con la rana en el bolsillo
Article number
substitution
[A/#:] " la[A/#:las] niñas estaban tristes
" las[A/#:la] niña estaba triste
Article Type
substitution
[A/T:] ! Used when the type of article {definite/indefinite) required is substituted
" Había una vez el[A/T:un] niño
" Habia la[A/T;una] flor
" Se entro una[A/T:la] rana por ahí (rana was previously mentioned)
Adjectives
Adjective gender
substitution
[Adj/G:] " la rana estaba enojado[Adj/G:enojada]
Adjective number
substitution
[Adj/#:] " los niños estaban enojado[Adj/#:enojados]
Pronouns
Clitic pronoun
omission
[C-/:] " no te [C-/:la] lleves
Clitic pronoun
gender substitution
[C/G:] " no te lo[C/G:la] lleves (Child was consistently using the noun ”rana”
before).
Clitic pronoun
number
substitution
[C/#:] " y las[C/#:LA] cogio de los pies (reference to the “rana”)
Reflexive pronoun
omission
[X-:se] " [X-:se] metio en la trompeta
Added reflexive [X-add] " y luego se[X-add] salto
Prepositions
Preposition
ommission
[P-:] " la rana ahí [P-:en] la mesa
Preposition
substitution
[P/:] " y le dijeron que mande a la ranita en[P/:a] el cuarto
Verbs
Verb omission [V-:] " la rana [V-:estaba] escondida en el bolso
Verb number
substitution
[V/#:] " los niños y la rana ya se va[V/#:van] con el
Tense substitution
error
[V/T:] " y le dijo que estan[V/T:estaban] bravos
Verb over-
generalization
[V/O:] " y le[LE] pono[V/O:puso] una[UNA] ropa
Verb agreement
noun movement
[VAM] " que estaba feliz la mama y el papa [VAM].
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Appendix 5. Elicitation Task
Clitic object pronouns practice items
Clitic pronoun
Feminine/singular
El día esta muy soleado y el niño quiere mirar hacia afuera. Qué hace el
niño con la ventana?
The day is sunny and the boy wants to look outside. What does the boy do
to the window?
La abre
He opens it
Clitic pronoun
Masculine/singular
Mira! Esta mama tiene un bebé. Qué le hace la mama al bebé?
Look! This mom has a baby. What does the mom do to the baby?
Lo mira – Lo abrazo – Lo alza
She looks at him - She hugs him - She holds him
Clitic pronoun
Masculine/plural
Los perros estaban muy sucios. Qué le hacen los niños a los perros?
The dogs were very dirty. What do the boys do to the dogs?
Los bañan
They wash them
Clitic object pronouns testing items
Clitic pronoun
Feminine/singular
Animacy
La niña y la mama iban a salir de paseo. La niña se bañó y la mama la
ayudo a arreglarse. Qué le hace la mama a la niña?
The girl and the mom were going out. The girl took a shower and the mom
helped her to get ready to go. What does the mom do to the girl?
La peina
She combs her
152
Clitic pronoun
Feminine/singular
Hoy es el cumpleaños de esta niña. Su mama le hizo una rica torta y le
puso una vela. Qué le esta haciendo la niña a la vela?
Today is this girl’s birthday. Her mom made her a yummy cake and put a
candle on it. What is the girl doing to the candle?
La sopla
She blows it
Clitic pronoun
Feminine/singular
Double clitic
La niña tenia mucha hambre y la mama le dio una galleta. Qué hace la
niña con la galleta?
The girl was very hungry and the mom gave her a cookie. What does the
girl do with the cookie?
Se la come
She eats it
Clitic pronoun
Femeninee/singular
Double clitic
Este niño tenia mucha hambre y le pido a la mamá una manzana. Qué
hace la mamá con la manzana?
This boy was very hungry and asked his mom for an apple. What does the
mom do with the apple?
Se la da
She gives it to him
Clitic pronoun
Marculine/singular
Animacy
La abuelita le regalo un libro muy lindo al niño. Qué hace el niño con el
libro?
The grandmother gave a nice book to the boy. What does the boy do with
the book?
Lo lee
He read it
153
Clitic pronoun
Marculine/singular
Hoy este niño recibió un regalo de parte de su papa. Qué le hace el niño al
regalo?
Today this boy got a gift from his dad. What does the boy do to the gift?
Lo abre
He opens it
Clitic pronoun
Marculine/singular
Double clitic
Este niño tenía mucha sed y la mamá le dio un vaso de jugo. Qué hace el
niño con el jugo?
This boy was very thirsty and the mom gave him a glass of juice. What
does the boy do with the juice?
Se lo toma
He drinks it
Clitic pronoun
Masculine/singular
Double clitic
Este niño se acaba de comer un mango y quedo muy sucio. Le pide a su
mama el jabón. Que hace la mama con el jabón?
The boys just had a mango and now he is very dirty. He asks his mom for
the soap. What does the mom do with the soap?
Se Lo da
She gives it to him
Clitic pronoun
Feminine/plural
Animacy
Esta niña tiene unas ranas. La niña va a salir al patio y quiere llevarse las
ranas en la caja. Qué le hace la niña a las ranas?
This girl has frogs. The girl is going to the backyard and wants to take
the frogs with her. What does the girl do with the frogs?
Las mete en la caja
She puts them on the box
154
Clitic pronoun
Feminine/plural
Que hace la mama a las flores?
What does this mom do to the flowers?
Las corta
She cuts them
Clitic pronoun
Feminine/plural
Double clitic
La niña debe terminar de arreglarse pronto porque va saliendo para el
colegio. Que hace la niña con las medias?
The girl needs to get ready soon because she is going to school. What
does the girl do with the socks?
Se las pone
She puts them on
Clitic pronoun
Masculine/plural
Animacy
La mama quiere mucho a sus bebes y piensa que son muy lindos. Qué le
hace la mama a los bebes?
The mom loves a lot her babies and she thinks they are very cute. What
does the mom do to the babies?
Los mira
She looks at them
Clitic pronoun
Masculine/plural
La familia termino de comer y la mama recogió los platos. Qué le hace la
mama a los platos?
The family finished dinner and the mom picked up the plates. What does
the mom do to the dishes?
Los lava
She washes them
155
Clitic pronoun
Masculine/plural
Double clitic
El niño va a salir pronto pero aun no tiene zapatos. Qué hace el niño con
los zapatos?
The boy is going to leave soon but he does not have his shoes on yet.
What does the boy do with the shoes?
Se los pone
He puts them on
Clitic pronoun
Dative/objeto indirecto-
Hoy es el día de la madre y a la mama de esta niña le encantan las cartas.
Qué hace la niña?
Today is mother’s day and the mom of this girl loves setter. What does
this girl do?
Le escribe una carta
She writes her a letter
Clitic pronoun
Dative/objeto indirecto-
La niña llego del colegio y le dijo a la mama que tenia mucha hambre.
Qué hace la mama?
The girl got home from school and told the mother that she was very
hungry. What does the mom do?
Le hace comida
She cooks something for her
Clitic pronoun
Dative/objeto indirecto-
Qué le hace la profesora al niño?
What does the teacher do to the boy?
Le pinta la cara
She paints the face
156
Noun phrase agreement practice items
Este señor estaba vendiendo estos peces y estas mariposas que están
aquí. Unos niños llegaron y cada niño compro uno de estos
Qué compró este niño?
This person was selling these butterflies and these fishes . These
kids came here and each kid bought one of these.. Which one did
this boy buy?
Noun phrase agreement
Feminine/singular
La mariposa amarilla
The yellow butterfly
Noun phrase agreement
Masculine/singular
El pescado Amarillo
The yellow fish
Noun phrase agreement
Feminine/singular
La mariposa azul
The blue butterfly
Noun phrase agreement testing items
La mamá les trajo estas manzanas y estas uvas al papá, al abuelo y a
los dos niños. Cada uno escogió una de estas. Cual escogió el papá?
Mom brought these fruits to the father, the grandfather and the kids.
Each one of them chose one fruit. Which one did the father choose?
Noun phrase agreement
Feminine/singular
La manzana verde
The green apple
Noun phrase agreement
Feminine/singular
La manzana roja
The red apple
Noun phrase agreement
Feminine/plural
Las uvas verdes
The green grapes
Noun phrase agreement
Feminine/plural
Las uvas rojas
The red grapes
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La familia tenía sed y la mamá les trajo estos vasos y estas botellas
de agua al papá, al abuelo y a los dos niños. Cada unos escogió uno
de estos. Que escogió el papa?
The family was thirsty and the mom brought these glasses and
bottles of water to the father, the grandfather and the kids. Each one
of them chose one of these. What did the father choose?
Noun phrase agreement
Masculine/singular
El vaso pequeño
The small glass
Noun phrase agreement
Masculine/singular
El vaso grande
The big glass
Noun phrase agreement
Feminine/singular
La botella grande
The big bottle
Este señor estaba vendiendo estos lápices y estas velas que están
aquí. Uno niños llegaron y cada niño compro una de estas cosas.
Qué compro este niño?
This person was selling these pencils and these candles. Each boy
bought one of these. What did this boy buy?
Noun phrase agreement
Masculine/plural
Los lapices grandes
The big pencils
Noun phrase agreement
Masculine/plural
Los lápices péquenos
The small pencils
Noun phrase agreement
Femenine/plural
Las velas grandes
The big candles
158
Estos animales iban volando hacia el niño. Mira, estos se le pararon
al niño. Cuales se le pararon al niño?
These birds were flying towards the boy. Look, these ----on the kid.
What _____on the kid?
Noun phrase agreement
masculine/plural
Los pajaros rojos
The red birds
Indefinite articles practice and testing items
Indefinite article
Practice
Un peine
A comb
Indefinite article
Practice
Una taza
A cup
Indefinite article
Practice
Unos libros
books
Indefinite article
Feminine/singular
Una cama
A bed
Indefinite article
Feminine/singular
Una escoba
A broom
Indefinite article
Feminine/singular
Una llave
A key
Indefinite article
Masculine/singular
Un carro
A car
Indefinite article
Masculine/singular
Un lápiz
A pencil
Indefinite article
Masculine/singular
Un perro
A dog
159
Indefinite article
Feminine/plural
Unas botas
boots
Indefinite article
Feminine/plural
Unas flores
flowers
Indefinite article
Feminine/plural
Unas tijeras
scissors
Indefinite article
Masculine/plural
Unos trenes
trains
Indefinite article
Masculine/plural
Unos relojes
watches
Indefinite article
Masculine/plural
Unos colores
colors
160
Appendix 6. Consent Forms and Assent Script
LETTER OF CONSENT-ADULT
My name is Anny Castilla, a Doctoral student in the Department of Speech Language Pathologyat The University of Toronto. I am conducting a research study on how and when children learnto speak Spanish. I invite your participation in this study, which will involve answering somequestions while looking at pictures. Your participation will last for 5 minutes approximately.Your will be audio recorded during the activity but not identifying information will be recordedon the tape.Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. The results of the researchstudy may be published, but your name will not be used. Although the data from this researchwill remain indefinitely in a database, your name will be kept confidential. Although there is notdirect benefit for participating in this study, you will receive 5.000 Colombian pesos as acompensation for your time. If you have any questions concerning the research study, please callme at XXXXX. I will be happy to discuss any concerns with you.
Sincerely,
CONSENTIMIENTO
Mi nombre es Anny castilla y soy una estudiante de doctorado en fonoaudiología en laUniversidad de Toronto, Ontario, Canadá. Estoy haciendo una investigación para aprender comoy cuando los niños aprenden a hablar Español.Me gustaría que usted participara en este estudiolo que involucraría responder a algunas preguntas mientras mira unos dibujos. Esto le tomaraaproximadamente 5 minutos. Usted podrá ser grabado en audio pero no se guardara informaciónque lo identifique. Su participación es absolutamente voluntaria. Los resultados de estainvestigación pueden ser publicados, pero su nombre no será revelado. Aunque los datos de estainvestigación quedaran permanentemente registrados en una base de datos, el nombre de su hijoserá confidencialmente mantenido. Aunque no hay beneficio directo para usted por participar eneste estudio, usted recibirá 5.000 pesos Colombianos para compensarlo por su tiempo. Si ustedtiene alguna pregunta relacionada con esta investigación comuníquese conmigo al teléfonoXXXXXX. Estaré dispuesta a ayudarle en lo que pueda.
Atentamente,
161
PARENTAL LETTER OF CONSENT
Dear Parent:
My name is Anny Castilla, a doctoral student in the Department of Speech Language Pathologyat the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. I am conducting a research study on how andwhen children between the ages of 3 and 5 years learn to use certain types of grammar inSpanish. This study has been approved by the research ethics board of the University ofToronto’s Faculty of Medicine. I would like to invite your child to participate in this study.Participation will involve a variety of tasks. First, your child will participate in a hearingscreening. If your child passes the hearing screening, he/she will participate in three languagetasks. These tasks include a vocabulary test where your child will be asked to point to somepictures, a story retelling where the child will be told a story and asked to tell it back to me, and atask based on answering questions based on pictures. Your child will be audio recorded during astory retelling task. The study will be conducted in one or two sessions of 60 minutesapproximately, depending on each child’s individual needs. The children will be given a breakduring the session if they desire. If your child does not pass the hearing screening, he/she will bereferred for a complete hearing evaluation and will not be eligible to participate in the study.As part of this study, I would also require your participation in filling out a questionnaire withinformation about your child’s development and family history of speech and languageproblems. This task should take approximately 20 minutes of your time.
Your and your child's participation in this study is completely voluntary. If you choose not toparticipate or have your child participate or if you wish to withdraw your child from the study atany time, there will be no consequences for you or your child in any way. Your child will beasked for assent before any of the assessment tasks take place. The results of the research studymay be published, but your child's name will not be used. No identifying information will beassociated with any of the results obtained from you or your child. Although the data from thisresearch will remain indefinitely in a database, your child’s name will be kept confidential. Youmay request a copy of the results once the study is completed.
The possible benefit of your child's participation in this research is to have their hearing screenedand to have an assessment of their vocabulary and understanding of certain grammar structuresin Spanish. Should your child perform below expectations in the language tasks you will beinformed immediately and she/he will be referred for a full speech and language assessmentYour child will receive stickers during the tasks and an ice cream coupon at the end of thesessions to compensate her/him for his/her time and help. If you have any questions concerningthe research study or your child's participation in this study, please contact me at the addressbelow. l will be happy to discuss any questions you might have. Should you have any questionsabout the ethical procedures associated with this study, please contact the University of TorontoEthics Review Board, whose contact information appears below.
Thanks you for considering participation in this study.
162
Padres de familia:
Mi nombre es Anny castilla y soy una estudiante de doctorado en fonoaudiología en laUniversidad de Toronto, Ontario, Canadá. Estoy haciendo una investigación para aprendercuando los niños entre 3 y 5 años usan cierto tipo de estructuras gramaticales en español. Esteestudio ha sido aprobado por el Comité de Ética de la Facultad de medicina de La Universidadde Toronto. Me gustaría invitar a su hijo(a) a que participe en este estudio lo que involucraríaparticipar en varias actividades. Primero, su hijo(a) participaría en una prueba de audición. Si suhijo(a) pasa la prueba de audición, el/ella pasaría a participar en tres actividades del lenguaje:una prueba de vocabulario en la cual se le pedirá a los niños que señalen unos dibujos, unaprueba en la que los niños escucharan un cuento y luego me lo contaran de nuevo a mi, y unaactividad en la cual los niños responderán unas preguntas basados en unos dibujos. Su hijo(a)será grabado en audio mientras recuenta la historia. La participación de su hijo(a) tendrá unaduración de una o dos sesiones de aproximadamente 60 minutos dependiendo de las necesidadesespecificas de su hijo (a). Los niños tendrán un descanso durante cada sesión si ellos lorequieren. Si su hijo(a) no pasa la prueba de audición el/ella será remitido para una pruebacompleta de audición y no será elegible para participar en el estudio.Como parte de este estudio, se requiere también de su participación llenando un cuestionario coninformación sobre el desarrollo de su hijo e historia de problemas de habla y lenguaje en sufamilia. Esta actividad le tomara aproximadamente 20 minutos.
La participación suya y de su hijo es absolutamente voluntaria. Si usted decide no participar oque su hijo(a) no participe o retirarse del estudio en cualquier momento, no habrá penalidad deningún tipo (por ejemplo, las calificaciones de su hijo(a) no se verán afectadas). Se le preguntaraa su hijo si quiere participar en las actividades antes de que cualquiera de las actividades seallevada a cabo. Los resultados de esta investigación pueden ser publicados, pero el nombre de suhijo(a) no será revelado. Ninguna información que los identifique será asociada con losresultados obtenidos. Aunque los datos de esta investigación quedaran permanentementeregistrados en una base de datos, el nombre de su hijo será confidencialmente mantenido.
Los posibles beneficios para su hijo(a) por participar en esta investigación es que el/ella tendrásu evaluación de la audición, vocabulario y algunas estructuras gramaticales. Si los resultados desu hijo(a) están bajo las expectativas de las actividades, usted será informado y su hijo(a) seráremitido para evaluación completa del lenguaje. Su hijo(a) recibirá calcomanías durante laparticipación en las actividades y un cupón para un helado al final de la(s) sesión(es) paracompensarlo(la) por su tiempo y colaboración.Si usted tiene alguna pregunta relacionada con esta investigación o con la participación de suhijo en este estudio comuníquese conmigo al teléfono 6661441. Estaré dispuesta a ayudarle enlo que pueda.
Atentamente,
163
CHILD VERBAL ASSENT
The examiner will ask to the child:Here I have some books and pictures. I need your help to answer some questions and tell me astory. Do you want to help me?
Did the child assent to the task YES____ NO ___
(A positive answer will be considered as an assent to participate in the task)
ASENTIMIENTO VERBAL DEL NIÑO(A)
El evaluador le preguntara al niño(a):Aquí tengo unos libros y unos dibujos. Necesito tu ayuda en responder algunas preguntas ycontarme una historia. Quieres ayudarme?
El niño asintió? SI____ NO____
(Una respuesta afirmativa será considerada como asentimiento de parte del niño)
164
Appendix 7. Direct Object Clitics
Table 1. Coding SchemaCode Description and examples
Clitic omission The child produced a verb but omitted the target cliticPrompt: Que hace el niño con el jugo?Response: Tomar. ‘Drink Ø.’ Tomandose. ‘Drink Ø’ Tomando. “Drinking Ø’
Target clitic The child produced the target cliticPrompt: Que hace las niña con las flores? ‘What does the girl do withthe flowers?’Response: Las corta. ‘She cuts them.’ Cortarlas ‘She cuts them.’ Esta cortandolas ‘She is cutting them.’
Numbersubstitution
The child changed the target number of the cliticPrompt: Que hace el niño con las medias? ‘What does the child dowith the socks?’Response: Esta poniendosela. ‘He is putting it.’ Se la esta poniendo. ‘He is putting it.’
Gendersubstitution
The child changed the target gender of the clitic.Prompt: Que hace la niña con la galleta? ‘What is the girl doing withthe cookie?’Response: Comiendoselo. ‘Eating it.’Prompt: Que hace el niño con el regalo? ‘What is the boy doing withthe present?’Response: Abriendola. ‘Opening it.’
Se substitution the child substituted the target clitic for a reflexive cliticPrompt: Que le hace la mama a la niña?Response: Peinarse. ‘ Brushing herself.’ Arreglandose ‘ Brushing herself.’ Peinandose ‘‘ Brushing herself.’
Casesubstitution
The child substituted the target clitic for a indirect object clitic (le-les)Prompt: Que hace el niño con el regalo? ‘What is the boy doing withthe present?’Response: Le esta poniendo una cinta. ‘She is putting her a ribbon.’Prompt: Que le hace la mama a la niña?Response: Le peino el cabello. ‘She is brushing her hair.’
165
Grammaticalanomaly
The child produced a semantically correct response butgrammatically incorrectPrompt: Que hace la niña con las ranas? ‘What is the girl doing withthe frogs?’Response: Yo no salen. ‘They don’t come out.’
Lexicalsubstitution
The child produced a grammatical correct response but semanticallydifferent from the target responseResponse: Para ir al colegio. ‘To go to school.’ Una torta para la niña. ‘A cake for the girl’ Papa dijo. “Dad said”
Lexical NP The child produces a noun phrase instead of a cliticPrompt: Que hace el niño con el jugo? “What is the child doing withthe juice?’Response: Esta tomando un jugo. ‘He is drinking a juice.’Prompt: Que hace la niña con la galleta? ‘What is the girl doing withthe cookie?’Response: Esta comiendo galleta. ‘She is eating cookie’
Unintelligible The child produced a partial or complete unintelligible response.Non-response The child did not answer to the question.
Table 2. Responses to direct clitic object - elicitation task
Response 3 years 4 years 5 years Adults
Target clitic 32.2% (26.0) 65.0% (24.8) 69.6% (23.3) 97.9%
Omission 22.2% (18.6) 13.7% (19.2) 13.0% (12.9) 2.1%
Gender substitution 3.6% (8.0) 3.4% (7.6) 2.9% (7.6) 0%
Number substitution 8.9% (13.6) 8.1% (10) 5.5% (9.3) 0%
Case substitution 2.2% (5.5) 1.5% (5.5) 1.6% (5.0) 0%
Se substitution 1.8% (4.1) 2.0% (3.8) 0.4% (2.0) 0%
Grammatical error 2.1% (3.8) 0.3% (1.9) 0.3% (2.0) 0%
No response 3.7% (19.5) 0.0% (0) 0.0% (0) 0%
Others 14.7% 3.5% 2.8% 0%
Unintelligible 8.5% (20.4) 0.7% (2.6) 1% (3.0) 0%
Lexical noun phrase 3.5% (5.7) 1.8% (4.6) 2.6% (6.1) 0%
166
Appendix 8. Reflexives
Table 1. Coding SchemaCode Description and examplesReflexive The child produced a reflexive pronoun.
Prompt: Qué hace la niña con la galleta? ‘What is the girl doing with thecookie?’Response: Comersela ‘She is eating it.’ Se la come ‘She is eating it.’ Esta comiendosela ‘She is eating it.’
Omission The child omitted the reflexive pronoun.Prompt: Qué hace el niño con el jugo? ‘What is the boy doing with the juice?’Response: *Tomando ‘Drinking.’ *Tomarlo ‘Drinking it’ *Lo toma ‘Drinking it’
Unintelligible The response of the child was unintelligible.
No response The child did not respond to the question.
Notapplicable
The child responded to the question but with an unrelated statement.Prompt: Qué hace el niño con el jugo? ‘What is the boy doing with the juice?’Response: A porque este jugo mamá ‘eh because this juice mom.’ Con la mamá ‘with the mom.’
Table 2. Responses to reflexive pronouns - Elicitation task3 years 4 years 5 years Adults
Reflexive 37.3% (16.8) 69.2%(31.7) 75.7% (31.3) 93.3% (8.6)
Omission 46.8% (28.2) 29.0% (29.5) 22.3% (28.8.0) 6.7 (8.6)
Unintelligible 9.0% (19.0) 0.3% (5.8) 1.0% (3.8) 0% (0)
No response 3.7% (8.0) 1.3% (1.8) 1.0% (5.7) 0 (0)
Not applicable 2.6% (11.5) 0% (0) 0% (0) 0 (0)
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Appendix 9. Adjectives
Table 1. Coding SchemaCode Description and examplesAdjective The child produced an adjective
Prompt: Cuál escogió el papa? ‘Which one did the father choose?’Response: Una botella azul ‘A blue bottle.” La botella chiquita “The blue bottle.” La pequeña “The small one.”
Omission The child omitted the adjectivePrompt: Cuál escogió el niño? ‘Which one did the boy choose?’Response: La manzana ‘the apple.’ Una manzana ‘an apple’ Manzana ‘apple’
Gender error The child produced an adjective that did not agree on gender with the noun itwas modifyingPrompt: Cuál escogió el X? ‘Which one did the X choose?’Response: *Manzana rojo ‘Red apple.” *Un pecao amailla ‘A yellow fish.’ *Un pez amarilla ‘A yellow fish.’
Number error The child produced an adjective that did not agree on number with the nounit was modifyingPrompt: Cuál escogió el X? ‘Which one did the X choose?’Response: *Unas manzanas verde ‘Some green apples.’ *Uvas verde ’Green apples.’ *Un lapicero grandotas ‘A big pen.’
Not applicable The child produced an unintelligible answer, did not respond to the question,or produced an unrelated statement
Table 2. Responses to adjectives – Elicitation taskResponse 3 4 5 Adults
Adjective 33.3% (29.5) 69.2%(26.1) 79.33% (25.0) 98.6%
Omission 38.3% (29.2) 13.0% (18.0) 5.4% (11.91) 1.4%
Gender error 0.9% (2.6) 2.3% (4.3) 2.1% (3.8) 0%
Number error 0.9% (3.3) 3.4% (5.6) 2.9% (5.0) 0%
Not applicable 28.6% (32.4) 11.3% (12.6) 10.1% (13.8) 0%
168
Appendix 10. Indefinite Articles
Table 1. Coding SchemeCode Description and examplesTargetindefinite article
The child produced the target indefinite articlePrompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’Response: Un carro ‘A car’ Unas flores ‘Some flowers.’ Unos relojes ‘Some clocks.’
Other correctindefinite article
The child produced a non-target correct indefinite articlePrompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’Response: Unos zapatos ‘some shoes’ Un par de botas ‘A couple of boots’ Un chuchu ‘A train’
Omission The child omitted the articlePrompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’Response: Botas ‘Boots.’ Perro ‘Dog.’ Flores ‘Flowers.’
Gendersubstitution
The child produced an article that did not agree on gender with the noun. Prompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’ Response: *Uno tren ‘A train’. *Uno flor ‘A flower.’
Numbersubstitution
The child produced an article that did not agree on number with the noun.Prompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’Response: *Las bota ‘The boot.’ *Una meias ‘A socks.’
Definite article The child produced a correct definite article.Prompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’Response: La mesa ‘The table’. El perro ‘The dog’ El Carro ‘The Car’
No response/Unintelligible
The child did not respond or the response was unintelligible
169
Table 2. Responses to indefinite article - Elicitation task
3 years 4 years 5 years Adults
Target indefinite
article
36.3% (21.4) 50.2%(21.4) 45.0% (24.0) 80%
Other correct
indefinite article
9.0% (11.3) 2.2% (3.7) 1.9% (4.1) 0%
Omission 31.3% (22.7) 40.6% (25.0) 46.9% (27.4) 19.0%
Gender
substitution
1.% (2.9) 0.6% (2.2) 0% (0) 0%
Number
substitution
3.4% (6.9) 1.5% (4.6) 1.7% (4.9) 0%
Definite Article 3.8% (6.4) 3.0% (5.2) 3.1% (7.9) 0.7%
No response/
unintelligible
14.2% (18.8) 1.9% (3.0) 1.7% (2.2) 0%
170
Appendix 11. Definite Articles
Table 1. Coding SchemaCode Description and examplesTarget definitearticle
The child produced the target definite articlePrompt: Cuál escogió el niño? ‘Which one did the boy choose?’Response: La manzana ‘The apple’ La manzana roja ‘The red apple.’ La roja. ‘The red one’
Omission The child omitted the articlePrompt: : Cuál escogió el niño? ‘Which one did the boy choose?’Response: Uvas ‘Grapes.’ Uvas rojas ‘Red grapes.’
Gendersubstitution
The child produced an article that did not agree on gender with the noun. Prompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’ Response: *Uno tren ‘A train’. *Uno flor ‘A flower.’
Numbersubstitution
The child produced an article that did not agree on number with the noun.Prompt: Qué es esto? ’What is this?’Response: *Las bota ‘The boot.’ *Una meias ‘A socks.’
Indefinitearticle
The child produced a correct indefinite article.Prompt: : Cuál escogió el niño? ‘Which one did the boy choose?’Response: Una roja ‘A red one’. Una manzana ‘An apple’ Una manzana roja ‘A red apple’
Other correctdeterminer
The child produced a quantifierPrompt: : Cuál escogió el niño? ‘Which one did the boy choose?’Response: Tres lapices. ‘Three pencils’ Tres velas. ‘Three candles’ Dos pajaros. ‘Two birds’
No response/Unintelligible
The child did not respond or the response was unintelligible
Other response The child produced an unrelated response
171
Table 2. Responses to definite article - Elicitation task
3 4 5 Adults
Target definite art 14.9% (17.5) 24.3%(25.0) 26.4% (26.7) 93.3%(10.2)
Indefinite Article 26.8% (22.0) 41.7% (26.8) 45.7% (33.0) 2.3%
Omission 21.8% (22.8) 19.7% (18.7) 16.0% (22.0) 2.3%
Gender
substitution
0.4% (1.9) 0.4% (1.8) 0.5% (1.9) 0%
Number
substitution
1.8% (4.9) 1.3% (3.6) 1.7% (4.9) 0%
No response 19.1% (36.8) 1.0% (0.4) 2.41% (5.6) 0%
Other response 7.9% (10.0) 3.6% (6.0) 1.0% (2.7) 0%
Other correct
determiner
9.17% (10.3) 6.83% (8.1) 6.92% (7.9) 2.3%
Table 3. Correlation table
Adjective Definite article Indefinite articleAdjective 1 .356** .323**Definite article .356** 1 -.460**Indefinite article .323** -.460** 1
172
Appendix 12. Correlation Table Controlling for Age
NU-TU MLTU SUB-I GRE-
TU
PRSLP FHSLP TVIP-
raw
TVIP-
Stand.
ET-
Score
NU-TU 1.00
MLTU .376
**
1.00
SUB-I .194 .610
**
1.00
GRE-TU .041 .029 -.076 1.00
PRSLP -.257
*
-.438
**
-.324
*
.043 1.00
FHSLP -.145 -.047 .040 .121 .140 1.00
TVIP-
Raw
.210 .157 .191 -.177 -.304
*
-.362
**
1.00
TVIP-
Stand.
.199 .149 .192 -.162 -.314
*
-.338
**
.964
**
1.00
ET-
Score
.423
**
.385
**
.278
*
-.249
*
-.528
**
-.150 .513
**
.523
**
1.00
* Significant at the .05 level ** Significant at the .001 level
