Frizelle, Pauline, Thompson, Paul A., Duta, Mihaela and Bishop, Dorothy V. M. (2019) Assessing children's understanding of complex syntax : a comparison of two methods. Language Learning, 69 (2). pp. 255-291. doi:10.1111/lang.12332 ISSN 0023-8333.
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Abstract
We examined the effect of two methods of assessment—multiple-choice sentence–picture matching and an animated sentence-verification task—on typically developing children's understanding of relative clauses. A sample of children between the ages of 3 years 6 months and 4 years 11 months took part in the study (N = 103). Results indicated that (a) participants performed better on the sentence-verification than on the multiple-choice task independently of age, (b) each testing method revealed a different hierarchy of constructions, and (c) the impact of testing method on participants’ performance was greater for some constructions than others. Our results suggest that young children can understand complex sentences when they are presented in a manner that better reflects how people process language in natural discourse. These results have implications for the study of language comprehension in suggesting that results from multiple-choice tasks may not generalize to other methods.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) |
| Journal or Publication Title: | Language Learning |
| Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc. |
| ISSN: | 0023-8333 |
| Official Date: | June 2019 |
| Dates: | Date Event June 2019 Published 30 January 2019 Available 29 September 2018 Accepted |
| Volume: | 69 |
| Number: | 2 |
| Page Range: | pp. 255-291 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/lang.12332 |
| Status: | Peer Reviewed |
| Publication Status: | Published |
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
| URI: | https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/160083/ |
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