Mean length of utterance and syntactic complexity in the speech of the mentally retarded children

Abstract

The study aimed at determining the mean length of utterance in words and morphemes, grammatical categories and their arrangement in these utterances
as used by normals and the mentally retarded population. 20 normals in the age range of 4-11 years and 10 mentally retarded children with IQ range of
41-70 with mean IQ of 54.2 were studied. The degree of retardation was diagnosed as mild or moderate by the psychologists. All the children had normal
hearing and no other sensory motor or neurological involvement. They all came from middle socio-economic background. The study was carried out by
subjective evaluation and a recording of spontaneous and elicited speech by diary keeping and audio tape recording. The data obtained was transcribed in
IPA transciptions.