PRESCHOOLERS’ DEVELOPING MORPHOSYNTACTIC SKILLS

Remember that:**

• McLaughlin ch. 8 is not on the exam—the exam is based entirely on these lecture notes

• The exception is Table 8-2 on p. 310—please memorize this—it’s always on the PRAXIS! And you need it for the “real world” too

Turnbull & Justice, 2012:

However: (Turnbull & Justice, 2012):

I. MASTERING GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES**

• Around 18 mos. of age, when children start putting two words together, we see grammatical morphemes emerge

• Brown’s Morphemes p. 310—on test—especially order of development

• Examples:• 1. -ing• 2. In• 3. On• 4. Regular plural -s

To assess children’s morphosyntactic

skills:**• We calculate MLU, or mean

length of utterance

• Instead of counting words, we count actual morphemes

• Remember, we have free and bound morphemes

Words vs. morphemes**

• We wanted to eat cookies.

• 5 words

• 7 morphemes

• The PRAXIS always asks you to count the # of morphemes in an utterance

How many morphemes?**• The three boys wanted five candies.

• We played all day with my friend’s toys.

• He’s going to cook eggs and bacon.

Count the morphemes in Mark McKibbin’s

utterances:**• (2.5 yrs old) “I need to get my

shoes and socks on because the stones will hurt my feet.”

• (3 yrs old) “I will give my old pillow to the poor children so they can sleep better.”

• (3 yrs. old) “Madame Blueberry was sad because they didn’t have happy hearts at the Stuffmart.”

II. DEVELOPING SYNTACTIC ELEMENTS

• A. Basic Sentence Constituents

• 1

2. Clause

3. Sentence

4. Noun phrase**

• Sentence role filled by people and objects

• The boy is blowing out his candles.

5. Verb phrase**

• Actions or relationships that are central to the sentence

• The girl lifts the beach ball.

• **The little red hen was eating corn.• NP VP

• The students are taking notes.– NP VP

The leaves were falling down.NP VP

The baby was laughing at the dog.

NP VP

B. Noun Phrase Elements

• 1. Determiners

• 2. Pronouns—

• 3. Noun suffixes

The derivational noun suffix -er

C. Verb Phrase Elements

Copula verbs–

More examples of copula verbs:**

• He is a boy scout.

• They were in their car.

• I am happy.

• State verbs

• Process verbs

By 5 years of age…**

• Children have mastered most verb forms

Youtube examples…

• 5 year old Gus—typically developing

• 8 year old with mixed expressive language disorder

III. BASIC SENTENCE STRUCTURE (review)

• A. Types of Sentences

• 1. Interrogative asks a question

•Yes-no ?s (earliest to develop—around 18 mos.)

•wh-?s•tag ?s (speaker wants

confirmation)

2. Declarative makes a statement

3. Passive

4. Negative

B. Complex and Compound

Sentences**• Independent or main

clause—can stand alone

• Dependent or subordinate clause—cannot stand alone

• 1. Complex sentence: Has indep. clause and dependent clause**

• We will go to the party if it is not raining.

• (main/indep. clause) (subordinate/dep. clause)

I talked to the boy who has red hair.(main/indep. clause) (subordinate/dep.

clause)

•2. **Compound sentence: 2 independent clauses are linked together by a conjunction

• We ate cookies and they were good.– (main/indep. clause)(main/indep. clause)

– John liked her but she didn’t like him.

– (main/indep. clause)(main/indep. clause)

Coordinating conjunctions:

Examples of sentences using coordinating conjunctions in compound

sentences:**• I wanted to get an A on the

test, so I studied hard.

• We could eat popcorn or we could have Doritos.

• She wanted to go shopping, but she didn’t have any money.

**

• Rescorla, 2008 ASHA Leader article (Sept. 23)

• “Late Talkers Show Language Weakness into Adolescence”

20+ years ago…**

• She got 2 groups of children:

• 1. 39 typically-developing (TD) children• 2. 40 late talkers

• All were 24-31 months of age

• All were from middle-upper income families

Follow-ups showed that:

Thus…

How can we help parents be motivated to seek early intervention for

their LTs?