Some Aspects of Syntax in 4-7 Year Old Typically Developing Malayalam Speaking Children: A Computerized Approach

Abstract

The study was designed to investigate the developmental pattern of certain aspects of syntax of Malayalam speaking children in the age range of 4 to 7 years and to find the relationship between Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) and the syntactic development. Three groups of Malayalam speaking children in the age range of 4-7 years with equal age intervals were considered for the study. Using the SALT Software the speech samples elicited through story retell task and conversation task were analyzed for the MLU in words(w) and MLU in morphemes(m), Type Token Ratio (ITR) and other grammatical structures. The results revealed a developmental trend across age groups in MLU Although MLU did not correlate with age, it correlated with the other grammatical structures studied such as plurals, causatives, Person-Noun-Gender (PNG) markers, tenses, case markers, conditionals, conjunctives, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, verbs, causatives, auxiliaries, interrogatives and negatives. Amongst these structures, adjectives, tense markers and PNG markers showed a significant developmental trend. In addition there was no gender difference in the acquisition of grammatical structures. These findings have implications in the assessment and intervention of children with developmental language disorders.