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The development of sentence planning
1University of Utrecht, Research Institute for Language and Speech, The Netherlands.
Journal of Child Language
|October 1, 1990
Summary
This study tracked speech disfluencies in a Dutch child, finding they increased then decreased during early language development. This pattern suggests the emergence of specialized planning for sentence structure.
Area of Science:
- Developmental linguistics
- Speech-language pathology
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Speech disfluencies, such as repetitions and revisions, are common in early language acquisition.
- Understanding the relationship between disfluencies and language development is crucial for identifying developmental trajectories.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the connection between speech output disturbances (dysfluencies) and the development of language production processes.
- To analyze the changing patterns of dysfluencies during the transition from pre-grammatical to grammatical language.
Main Methods:
- An exploratory case study design was employed.
- Weekly transcribed speech samples from a Dutch boy aged 2;4 to 2;11 were analyzed.
- The frequency and distribution of dysfluencies (repetitions, revisions, incomplete phrases) were tracked over time.
Main Results:
- A significant increase followed by a decline in the frequency of dysfluencies was observed.
- Dysfluencies shifted from random distribution to concentration in function words and sentence-initial positions.
- A decrease in the dysfluency rate correlated with the increased use of specific syntactic frames.
Conclusions:
- The observed patterns of dysfluency suggest the emergence of a dedicated serial-order planning component in speech production.
- These findings provide insights into the developmental stages of language production and the role of syntactic structures.