Use of complex sentence types by Mandarin-speaking preschool children with typical development and developmental...

This study analyzed the complex sentences used by Mandarin-speaking preschool children with typical development (TD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) and explored the types of complex sentences that children with DLD have difficulty using in speech. The participants were 67 children (41 TD and 26 DLD) between the ages of 3 and 5 years. They were divided into six groups based on biological age and performance on the Revised Language Disorder Scale for Preschool Children: TD three-, four-, and five-year-olds, and DLD three-, four-, and five-year-olds. Language samples were elicited through one-on-one interactions in four specified contexts: family conversation, school conversation, free play, and story retelling. A total of 100 valid utterances were selected for the annotation and analysis of 15 complex sentence types. The frequency of use and proportion of users for each sentence type were calculated. Significant differences in the frequency of use and proportion of users were subsequently compared between the TD and DLD groups for each age level. Differences were particularly observed for successive complex sentences and cause-effect complex sentences in the 3-year-old group and complement clauses in the 5-year-old group. These findings suggest that children with DLD experience greater difficulties acquiring and using these specific complex sentence structures in their spoken language than typically developing peers.