Importance of Elaborated Noun Phrases (ENPs) Noun Phrase Assessment Only discriminating literate language feature demonstrating change with age among preschool children (Lemmon & McDade, 2006) Particularly sensitive indicator of literate language development (Nippold, 2007) Post-noun modification (Modifier) use twiceas often by children with high language ability (Loban, 1976) Seven to ten-year-old children LI produce less noun phrase elaboration (Greenhalgh and Strong, 2001) School-age children with LI have fewer complex sentences and ENPs (Paul, 1995). Children s literate language is similar in both spoken and written narratives (Michaels and Collins, 1984) Noun Phrase Content Noun or pronoun as an obligatory or Head element and all related elements Fills the noun function in a sentence ENPs consist of five categories: Initiator (a few of) Determiner (my) (old) Head ( friends) Modifier (from school) Category Initiator Determiner Element Quantifier + + Possessive pronoun + Demonstrative + Numerical term Possessive Noun + Ordinal + + Descriptor Noun Pronoun + Noun Modifier Prep. Phrase + Adjectival + Adverbial + Embedded clause Noun Phrase Content Initiator Only, a few of, just, at least, nearly Initiatorintroduces the noun phrase and quantifies the information that follows as in only, most of, at least, and nearly Determinerspecifies nouns by quantification, grammatical number, reference, and noun subclass membership (i.e. count, mass, or proper noun) Subdivided into quantifier, article, possessive pronoun, demonstrative and numerical term elements. provides qualitative information and consists of possessive noun, ordinal, adjective, and descriptor elements Post-noun Modifiermay include prepositional phrases, adjectivals, adverbials, and embedded clauses. Quantifier All, both half, no, one-tenth, some A, the, an Possessive pronoun My, your, his, her, its, our, their Demonstrative This, that, these, those Numerical term One, two, thirty, one thousand Possessive Noun Mommy s, boys, children s, Juan s Ordinal First, next, last, next to, second, final Blue, big, fat, married, challenging Descriptor Shopping (center), baseball (game) Prep. Phrase On the car, in the window, at school Adjectival Next door, loved by all, beloved Adverbial Here, there Embedded clause That lives next door, who you know 1
Testing is a proverbial favorite, but Misuse of scores Weaknesses Content relevance: Delineation of domain being tested Underlying model or rationale? Content coverage: Representativeness of behavior sampled Inability to assess some language features in a structured mode Misuses Extrapolation False equalities and inequalities Inappropriate norms Standards of comparison across children. What s age equivalent? Scores treated as real differences Scores = Labels What does impaired mean? Two standard deviations below the mean or below 10 th percentile? Best general indication of language use Correlates well with results from many test formats Only way to elicit some language features Engler, Hannah, and Longhurst (1973) Transformational/generative grammar Brown (1973) MLU and stages of development And it can be very technical, difficult, and time-consuming! Clinical linguistic analyses are complex and timeconsuming because linguistic disability is a complex and extensive phenomenon... (Crystal, 1981, p. 10). Although 85% of SLPs say they use language sample analysis, Kemp and Klee (1997) report that 59% also say they transcribe children s language samples in real-time! 78% use 50-utterance samples or shorter 2
Our Studies of Child Language Sampling Different method of collecting Different calculation methods Making MLU viable beyond 4-year-olds Other quantitative measures Supported by Noun phrase developmental data Preposition developmental data Verb phrase developmental data Sentence developmental data Study #1: Can we change the quality of samples? Twenty-two students each collected a language sample from a child (? = 51.36 months, SD = 12.14) Small group of student trainers Prepared handout on collecting sample emphasizing narrative elicitation Collecting Handout.doc Trained same 22 students via role-playing in elicitation techniques Six months after 1 st sample, same 22 students each collected a second language sample from a different child (? = 57.81, SD = 13.2) Trained Conversational Strategies for Collecting Turnabouts = Comment + Cue for child to talk Process Questions How did What happened Tell me I wonder what you Why did More than one-word why questions Not appropriate for kids below 4.5 yrs Trained Conversational Strategies for Collecting Use narrative eliciations instead of yes/no questions Build on what the child says or on what you know Begin with Your mom says you. That sounds like fun. Tell me what happened. I know that you. Tell me what happened. Did you ever. Tell me what you did. Study #1: Can we change the quality of samples? Transcription Utterance is a sentence or less Run-on sentences joining clauses with and are divided so that no more than 2 clauses are joined We went to the zoo and I saw elephants and one sneezed and we had a picnic. We went to the zoo and I saw elephants. [And] One sneezed and we had a picnic. Study #1: Can we change the quality of samples? Results Significant Increase in child MLU, t= 3.05; p < 1 Decrease in the mean number of yes/no questions asked by adult, t = 4.35; p < 1 Decrease in the mean number of one-word child responses, t = 3.46; p < 1 No significant difference Mean number of child clauses per sentence, t =.84; p >.05 Mean number of child utterances per turn, t = -.96; p >.05 3
Study #2: Preparing a Sampling Standard Study #2: Analysis Based on 175 50-utterance samples from 3-7-year-olds 175 50-utterance samples of children 30-89 months Used narrative techniques taught previously Analyzed in several ways Analysis.docx Guidelines for use MLU Clauses/Sentence Words/Clause Noun Phrases/Sentence Total number of words Words/Sentence Noun Phrases/Clause Elements/Noun phrase Verb Phrase length Elements of Verb Phrase Conjunctions Prepositions Subordinating Pronouns Embedding & Conjoining Brown s Rules for Counting Morphemes Count as one morpheme Reoccurrences of a word for emphasis Compound words Why keep it 1 morpheme? Proper names Why keep it 1 morpheme? Ritualized reduplications Irregular past tense verbs Diminutives Auxiliary verbs & catenatives (gotta, hafta) Irregular plurals Brown s Rules for Counting Morphemes (Cont.) Count as two morphemes Possessive nouns (noun + s or s ) Plural nouns (noun + s) Third person singular present tense verbs (verb + s) Regular past tense verbs (verb + ed) Present progressive verbs (verb + ing) Brown s Rules for Counting Morphemes (Cont.) Do NOT count Disfluences Fillers With mazes, count the most full form of what the child has said. Example: [So we went to, to you know,] we planned to go to [that place that we uh, the,] the circus but [we could ]it rained = 12 morphemes Add to Brown s Rules for Counting Morphemes: Change and count each word of a name. Change and count each morpheme of a compound word. Count contractions (don t, I d, he s, we ll, they ve) as 2 morphemes* Count as 1 morpheme: -ful, -ly, -y (adj.), -en, -th, -ish, -ment, -tion, dis-, un-; -er (comparative); -est (superlative); -er (person or thing that does some action unless common, such as teacher) *Did this previously. Difference is addition of don t, can t, and won t 4
1 600 1 500 1 3.968.00 5.33 5.48 6.68 7.73 MLU MLU 0.77 1.30 1.12 1.79 2.35 St Dev 6.00 3.19 4.03 4.36 4.89 5.38 1 StDev Linear () Total Number of Words 400 189.67 249.65 261.18 314.94 336.07 TNW 300 55.36 61.43 65.90 87.41 90.97 StDev Linear () 200 134.31 188.22 195.28 227.53 245.10 1 StDev 36100 mos 48 mos 60 mos 72 mos 84 mos Age 0 Clauses/Sentence Guidelines If an utterance contains more than two clauses joined with and, consider it a run-on sentence and divide as follows: We went to the circus and I saw clowns and there were elephants and I got this sweet sticky stuff. We went to the circus and I saw clowns. [And] there were elephants and I got this sweet sticky stuff. Do NOT do this with other conjunctions. Clauses/Sentence Guidelines Count as a clause even though the subject or verb is omitted because of ellipsis. Example: Who can go with me? I can = 1 clause (S + aux.v) But Mommy walked and ran all the way home = 1 clause with compound verb Bobby and Jim ran fast = 1 clause with compound subject 25 2.50 20 Clauses/Sentence 1.09 1.21 1.28 1.43 1.46 Cl/Sent 1.50 0.09 0.13 0.17 0.27 0.27 StDev Linear () 1.00 1.08 1.11 1.16 1.19 1 StDev Words/Sentence 15 4.62 5.82 6.45 7.49 7.86 Wds/Sen 0.74 1.31 1.31 2.12 2.06 StDev 10 3.87 4.51 5.14 5.37 5.80 1 StDev Linear () 0.50 5 0 5
When is a clause a clause? 9.00 8.00 When it contains a subject and a verb. Mommy walked but I ran. (2 clauses) When it contains at least the subject or the verb. What did you do? Ran. (1 clause) Who played? We did. (1 clause) Imperatives Come here. ([You] come here.)(1 clause) 7.00 6.00 4.23 5.00 4.78 5.00 5.17 5.34 Wds/Cl Linear () Words/Clause 0.58 0.70 0.82 0.71 0.64 StDev 3.65 4.08 4.18 4.46 4.70 1 StDev 361.00 mos 48 mos 60 mos 72 mos 84 mos Age Verb Phrase Guidelines Verb Phrases = The verb and everything that follows. Examples: The dog has been eating my candy. (5 words) Why is mommy sleeping in the sun? (5 words) Conjoining: They went homeand I played by myself. (2 verb phrases; 2 and 3 words respectively) Embedding: I know what you did at school today. (2 verb phrases: know what you did at school today and did at school today ; 7 and 4 words respectively) Verb Phrase Guidelines Ellipsis: Count as a verb phrase but only the words in the verb portion not other phrases. Who can eat this last piece of pizza? I can. Count as 2 words: I can (eat). Do NOT count additional phrases also implied by ellipsis I can (eat)(the last piece of pizza). Compound verbs: Count as one verb phrase Mommy chased the dog and caught it. Verb Phrase Wrinkles Contractions: I m going to go too. (1 verb phrase, 5 words) Questions: Is she coming with us? (1 verb phrase, 4 words) What do you want? When in doubt, make it into a statement, as in You do want what. (1 verb phrase, 3 words) 9.00 8.00 7.00 6.00 3.21 3.89 4.02 4.21 4.78 Wds/VP 5.00 Words/Verb phrase 0.37 0.61 0.64 0.69 1.19 StDev Linear () 2.84 3.28 3.38 3.52 3.59 1 StDev 1.00 Age in 12-month Intervalss 6
5.00 4.50 3.50 1.97 2.23 2.33 2.42 3.03 NP/Sen 2.50 Noun phrases/sentence 0.51 0.63 0.60 0.45 0.94 StDev 1.46 1.50 1.60 1.73 1.98 2.09 1 StDev 1.00 0.50 Age in 12-month Intervals Linear () Initiator Only, a few of, just, at least, nearly Quantifier All, both half, no, one-tenth, some A, the, an Possessive pronoun My, your, his, her, its, our, their Demonstrative This, that, these, those Numerical term One, two, thirty, one thousand Possessive Noun Mommy s, boys, children s, Juan s Ordinal First, next, last, next to, second, final Blue, big, fat, married, challenging Descriptor Shopping (center), baseball (game) Prep. Phrase On the car, in the window, at school Adjectival Next door, loved by all, beloved Adverbial Here, there Embedded clause That lives next door, who you know 3.50 Elements/Noun phrase 2.50 1.84 2.07 2.16 2.24 2.40 Elem/NP 0.46 0.39 0.37 0.42 0.27 StDev 1.50 1.38 1.00 1.68 1.79 1.82 2.13 1 StDev 0.50 Linear () Age? No. Of Percentage using Various Length ENPS Elements 2 -element 3-element 4 -element 36 1.84 100.0 79.16 16.67 48 2.07 100.0 100.0 51.85 60 2.16 100.0 100.0 58.0 72 2.24 100.0 100.0 87.5 84 2.40 100.0 100.0 100.0 Age in 12-month intervals 2-element ENPs 3-element ENPs 4-element ENPs 36 m 48 m 60 m 72 m 84 m Age Mos. Percentage of Children Producing Major ENP Categories by Age Initiator + Determiner + + Noun + Modifier 36 7.41 100 96.3 100 70.37 48 17.86 100 98.22 100 87.5 60 11.54 100 98.81 100 96.15 72 38.46 100 100 100 96.15 84 25.0 100 100 100 87.5 All values in red are found in at least 70% of the language samples 7
Initiator Determiner Noun Modifier 36 m 48 m 60 m 72 m 84 m 36 Months Noun, article Noun, article, possessive pronoun, adjective 48 months Noun, article Noun, article, possessive pronoun, adjective 60 months Noun, article, adjective, post- Noun, article, possessive pronoun, nominal prepositional phrase adjective, quantifier, demonstrative, post-nominal prepositional phrase, descriptor 72 months Noun, article, adjective, post- Noun, article, possessive pronoun, nominal prepositional phrase adjective, quantifier, demonstrative, post-nominal prepositional phrase, descriptor, post-nominal embedded clause 84 months Noun, article, adjective, post- Noun, article, possessive pronoun, nominal prepositional phrase, adjective, quantifier, demonstrative, possessive pronoun, quantifier post-nominal prepositional phrase, descriptor, post-nominal embedded clause Why 70% of the Samples? Not every sample will display the same significant milestones. Language feature, it has a good chance of being displayed in clinical samples Most likely, more than 70%the children have that feature Even some language development studies use the 70% criterion, although not most. It's nearly impossible to get any language feature that is displayed by 75% or 90% of the children in a 50 utterance sample Quantifier Possessive Pronoun Demonstrative Numerical Term Possessive Noun Ordinal Descriptor Noun Prepositional phrase Adjectival Adverbial Embedded Clause 36 m 48 m 60 m 72 m 84 m MLU Cl/Sen Wd/Cl NP/Sen TNW Wd/Sen Elm/NP Wds/VP In 70% of 36- month-olds Poss. Pronoun In current child v v 8
MLU Cl/Sen Wd/Cl NP/Sen TNW Wd/Sen Elm/NP Wds/VP In 70% of 60- month-olds Quantifier Poss. Pronoun Demonstrative Descriptor Prepositional Phrase Current child v 9