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Grammaticality judgments in children: The role of age, working memory and phonological ability*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2008

JANET L. McDONALD
JANET L. McDONALD*
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University
*
Address for correspondence: Janet L. McDonald, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. Tel: (225) 578-4116. Fax: (225) 578-4125. e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines the role of age, working memory span and phonological ability in the mastery of ten different grammatical constructions. Six- through eleven-year-old children (n=68) and adults (n=19) performed a grammaticality judgment task as well as tests of working memory capacity and receptive phonological ability. Children showed early mastery of some grammatical structures (e.g. word order, article omissions) while even the oldest children differed from adults on others (e.g. past tense, third person singular agreement). Working memory capacity and phonological ability accounted for variance in grammaticality judgments above and beyond age effects. In particular, working memory capacity correlated with structures involving verb morphology and word order; phonological ability was important for structures with low phonetic substance. Children's relative difficulty with the different constructions showed parallels to adult performance under memory load stress, indicating working memory capacity may be a limiting factor in their performance. Implications for performance by memory and phonologically impaired populations are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 247 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by a Faculty Research Grant from Louisiana State University to the author. A preliminary version of this data was presented at the 45th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, MN. I thank Chase Faucheaux, Patrick Johnson, Stephanie Peterson and Marie Nebel-Schwalm for help in gathering the data. Thanks also to the children and parents who participated, and the University Lab School and Trinity Episcopal School for their help.

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