Linguistics Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Linguistics, including details on human language, phonetics, syntax, phonology.

Assessing the emergence of grammar in toddlers at risk for specific language impairment.

Hadley PA

Department of Communicative Disorders, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115, USA. phadley@niu.edu

The purpose of this article is to identify areas of grammatical development that can be incorporated into risk-factor assessment models for toddlers between the ages of 2 and 3. A simple framework is presented for conceptualizing three early grammatical accomplishments: the acquisition of an initial verb lexicon, production of early sentence types, and the onset of tense marking. Strategies for using parent-report instruments and structure-specific language sampling to assess these areas in a time-efficient manner are provided.

Published 30 August 2006 in Semin Speech Lang, 27(3): 173-86.
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