Effects of sampling context on the finite verb production of children with and without delayed language development

Informal language sampling is ubiquitous in the study of developing grammatical abilities in children with and without delayed language, including study of grammatical abilities in the area of finite verb production. Finite verbs are particularly important to assess as they appear to be the grammatical morphemes most vulnerable to error in the language usage of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Although it is known that context and procedure of informal language sampling interact with language usage, this interaction has not been studied with regard to finite verb production for children with or without language delay. Therefore, this study examined the production of obligatory contexts for finite verbs, and the correct use of finite verb forms in these obligatory contexts, across four different language sampling contexts and procedures. Results revealed that finite verb production was sensitive to both group and context differences for preschool-age children with, and without, language impairment.

As a result of this activity, the reader should be able to: (1) describe the importance of assessing finite verb production in young children, (2) conceptualize processing demands as they relate to highly-structured versus less-structured, informal language sampling tasks, and (3) identify critical issues related to informal language sampling context effects on the finite verb production of young children.