Syntactic complexity in the writing of students with and without mental retardation

Students with and without mental retardation (ns = 45 and 60, respectively) were compared on nine measures of syntactic complexity in writing at three grade levels. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences for group, but not for grade level or group by grade level. Students without mental retardation scored significantly better than those with mental retardation on all components of syntactic complexity except clause length. These results support other research in which students with mental retardation showed significant deficits in written language. Implications for remediation were discussed.