Syntactic development in ‘ uent children, children who stutter, and children who have English as an additional language

Abstract

Children aged between two and 10 years were assessed on a new reception of syntax test (ROST). Validations of the test are reported for monolingual fluent control children under five (by examining the relationship with mean length of utterance and the Oxford Communication Development Inventory) and for over fives (relationship with a new judgement of grammaticality test using syntactic categories common to the two tests). Performance of these children was compared with performance of children who stutter and children with English as an additional language. In this study, the test was divided into under-five and over-five forms. Any young child progressing to the over-five syntactic categories, or any older child doing the under-five syntactic categories was dropped from the analysis. ROST scores prepared according to this scheme led to no differences between the control and either of the subject groups tested. However, compared to controls, the children with English as an additional language (but not children who stutter) had a significantly higher proportion of children above five who did the under-five categories (and were, therefore, excluded from the analyses). The higher proportion of children who did the under-five syntactic categories in the English as an additional language group indicates that group scores would have been lower if their syntax results had been included in the analysis. Further analyses provided some evidence that two groups with English as an additional language (Turkish and Cantonese speakers) did not perform any better on selected syntactic categories in their native language compared with their performance in English.

Childhood stuttering and dissociations across linguistic domains

“…On the other hand, present findings are seemingly inconsistent with those of Howell et al (2003), who reported that CWS and CWNS did not differ in their receptive syntax abilities. These contradictory findings, however, can most likely be traced to the fact that the present study and Howell et al employed different methodology with respect to the age of the participants and the type of test used to measure receptive language.…”

“…On the other hand, some empirical studies have found no evidence to suggest that the speech or language abilities of CWS are less robust than those of CWNS (e.g., see Nippold, 2002 for review). For example, Howell, Davis, and Au-Yeung (2003) reported that CWS and CWNS (aged 2-10 years) performed similarly on the Reception of Syntax Test, a measure of syntactic development. To further challenge any clear-cut interpretation of this area of empirical investigation, some studies have reported that CWS may have above average expressive language abilities relative to their developmental expectations (Watkins & Yairi, 1997;Watkins, Yairi, & Ambrose, 1999).…”

Assessment of Some Contemporary Theories of Stuttering That Apply to Spontaneous Speech

“…Children who stutter and matched controls have been compared on their performance in the Reception of Syntax Test (ROST). ROST has some similarities with the TROG test (Howell, Davis, & Au-Yeung, 2003), but it is simpler (requiring choice between two, rather than TROG's four, pictures). This allows it to be used with children younger than those tested with TROG.…”

Planning and execution processes in speech control by fluent speakers and speakers who stutter

“…Her argument for (a) is that problems like stuttering arise around the age at which there is rapid progress in syntactic development (Bernstein Ratner, 1997). Our recent experimental tests have failed to find any differences in syntactic processing between young fluent children and age-matched children who stutter (Howell, Davis, & Au-Yeung, 2003). In comprehensive reviews, Nippold (1990Nippold ( , 2001 also concludes that there are few effects of syntax on stuttering.…”