Stalls and revisions: a developmental perspective on sentence production
Matthew Rispoli1, Pamela Hadley, Janet Holt
1Department of Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. mrispoli@illinois.edu
Summary
This study examined sentence disruptions in children, finding that revision rates increase with age, supporting the stall-revision distinction in language development. Stall rates, however, varied with sentence length.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Child Language Acquisition
Background:
- Understanding sentence production development is crucial for identifying language acquisition milestones.
- The stall-revision distinction offers a framework for analyzing sentence disruptions.
- Previous research has not fully explored the empirical validity of this distinction in early language development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To empirically validate the stall-revision distinction in sentence production.
- To characterize the developmental trajectory of sentence production using this dichotomy.
- To investigate age-related changes in stall and revision rates.
Main Methods:
- Observed sentence production in 20 typically developing children aged 21–33 months.
- Analyzed developmental changes in stall and revision rates using hierarchical linear modeling.
- Explored differences in stall and revision rates based on sentence length at 33 months.
Main Results:
- Revision rates showed a clear developmental trend, increasing from approximately 1% at 27 months with age.
- Stall rate trends were not discernible developmentally but increased significantly with sentence length.
- Revision rate remained constant across sentence lengths, while stall rate varied.
Conclusions:
- Findings support the stall-revision dichotomy as a valid framework for analyzing sentence disruptions.
- Developmental increases in revision rates likely reflect enhanced language monitoring abilities in children.
- The distinct patterns for stall and revision rates highlight different aspects of sentence production development.
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