Passive comprehension by Slovak typically and atypically developing children
Master thesis in psychology, 2008. Author: Radka Antalíková, Supervisor: Kristine Jensen de López
Introduction
Method
Conclusion
In English, children hear passive constructions in
spontaneous speech around them only occasionally – and
still they fully acquire these structures at the age of
around 3. Does this indicate existence of innate linguistic
structures that help children in the process of language
attainment (as Chomsky believed)?
• a picture-pointing task “Sentence Comprehension Test” (SCT) designed
for the study – based on the COST Action A33 materials and TAPS-R (van
der Lely, 2005)
Even though passive constructions in Slovak are very rare,
they are comprehended by children correctly – an
argument for the Chomskian tradition. On the other hand,
their performance did not reach ceiling at any age – this
might be in respect to the specialties of Slovak language in
general and Slovak passives in particular.
On the other hand, crosslinguistic research has shown that
the age of full acquisition of passives in children varies
across languages. Does this mean children’s linguistic
performance is rather dependent on the input received
and particular type of language?
Example:
• test exploring comprehension of 3 types of sentences (active,
adjectival passive and full passive) by using 12 different verbs and
therefore 12 different sets of 4 pictures
presentation of the picture set
sentence said
pointing to the correct picture
(“John is being covered by Dad”)
In general, the Sentence Comprehension Test (SCT) proved
to be a valid test and re-testing on older children and with
different types of sentences might provide more evidence
in this respect.
References
Aim
To study comprehension of adjectival passive (“Dad is
covered”) and full passive (“John is being covered by
Dad”) constructions in comparison with active
constructions (“Dad is covering John”) in Slovak typically
and atypically developing children – with respect to all
specialties of Slovak language (passives almost never used
in spoken language, flexible word order and no byphrase).
Hypotheses
1. Comprehension of active sentences is going to be the
highest both across the linguistic aptitude groups and
age groups (as active sentences are considered to be
the easiest to comprehend in general);
COST Action A33 [online]. Berlin: Centre for General
Linguistics, Typology and Universals Research, 2006 [cit.
2008-04-22]. Available on the internet: http://www.zas.
gwz-berlin.de/cost/index.html.
Participants
1. 9 adults (5 women, 4 men) with mean age 21;8 years (pilot study);
2. 36 typically developing (TD) children in three age groups of 12 (3-, 4-,
5- and 6-years old with mean age 3;7, 4;6 and 5;9 years, respectively)
with each of them balanced for gender (6 girls and 6 boys in each
group); and
3. 8 children with specific language impairment (SLI) (1 girl, 7 boys)
from a special primary school with mean age 7;0 years.
Results
2. Comprehension of adjectival passive sentences is going
to be higher than in full passive sentences both across
the linguistic aptitude groups and age groups (as
adjectival passives are considered to be the less
complex to comprehend than full passives);
4. Comprehension of active and adjectival passive
sentences in children with specific language
impairment is going to follow this trend as well, but full
passive sentences will still stay very low (as children
with specific language impairment are considered to
have particular difficulties with full passives).
12
10
8
Mean
3. Comprehension of all forms of sentences is going to
increase across the age groups; and
Correct responses in sentence types across the age and
linguistic aptitude groups
actives
6
adjectivals
passives
4
2
0
3-years old TD 4-years old TD 5- and 6-years 6- and 7-years
old TD
old SLI
age and linguistic aptitude group
Graph on the left
displays results
confirming all 4
hypotheses at
once– children do
get better by age
in all respects,
only children with
impairment stay
very low on
passives – below
performance of 4years old typically
developing
children.
LELY, H. K. J. van der. Specifically language impaired and
normally developing children: Verbal passive vs. adjectival
passive sentence interpretation. In Lingua [online]. 1996,
vol. 98, no. 4 [cit. 2008-02-21], p. 243-272. Available on
the internet: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti
cle/B6V6H-3VW1DSF-2/2/56d2e7bfaf2b7eb7f48f79af3681
e38b. ISSN 0024-3841.
LELY, H. K. J. van der. Test of Active and Passive
Sentences - Revised (TAPS-R).1st ed. London: University
College London, 2005.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Kristine, Tia and Knut, and all children
participating in the study.