Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Semester of Degree Completion

1984

Thesis Director

Claire B. Thorsen

Abstract

Speech pathologists have several formal diagnostic methods available for the analysis of language. A diagnostician may elect to use a non-standardized procedure to supplement formal methods. A clinician-designed procedure can facilitate the transition from test result to treatment plan. Such a procedure may be constructed to account for an individual child's age, strengths, and weaknesses. Previous research has indicated that two types of sentence completion tasks, syntactic elicitation and emphatic elicitation, are effective in the elicitation of copula and auxiliary forms of TO BE from kindergarten children. The purpose of this study was to compare the use of these two elicitation procedures with three-year-old children.

This study employed a repeated measures design to evaluate the effectiveness of the syntactic elicitation procedure as compared to the emphatic elicitation procedure for the elicitation of copula and auxiliary forms of TO BE from three-year-old children. During an initial session subject elligibility was determined. Each child demonstrated evidence of hearing and receptive and expressive language within normal limits. Comprehension of experimental vocabulary items and correct usage of copula and auxiliary forms were also evidenced during the pre-experimental session. Subjects included ten three-year-old children who were seen for an experimental session at their respective day care centers or preschools within one week of the pre-experimental session. These children were presented with twelve syntactic elicitation items and twelve emphatic elicitation items. Responses were audio tape recorded and written on response forms for analysis.

Responses to the sentence completion items were considered correct if they duplicated the targeted verb form, person, and number. Analysis of variance yielded a significant F ratio for the difference in the number of correct copula forms elicited by the syntactic elicitation items as compared to the emphatic elicitation items. A significant F ratio was also obtained for the difference in the number of correct auxiliary forms elicited by the syntactic elicitation procedure as compared to the emphatic elicitation procedure. An analysis of error types revealed that a high percentage of the errors on emphatic elicitation items indicated confusion regarding how to respond to this procedure.

The results indicated that the syntactic elicitation procedure can be a useful diagnostic method with three-year-old children. The emphatic elicitation procedure was not appropriate for use with this age group. Further research regarding modifications in the use of these procedures is warranted to determine if either procedure can be designed more effectively.

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