Input Subject Diversity Accelerates the Growth of Tense and Agreement: Indirect Benefits From a Parent-Implemented Intervention

• Published in: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research Vol. 60; no. 9; pp. 2619 - 2635
• Main Authors: Hadley, Pamela A., Rispoli, Matthew, Holt, Janet K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 01.09.2017
• Subjects: Adult; Adult Education; Basic Skills; Child Language; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Comparative Analysis; Control Groups; Cues; Evidence; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Followup Studies; Grammar; Grammatical agreement; Grammatical subject; Humans; Hypotheses; Intervention; Language; Language Acquisition; Language disorders; Language Impairments; Language Patterns; Language Tests; Linear Models; Linguistic Input; Linguistic research; Linguistics; Longitudinal studies; Male; Morphemes; Native Language; Noun phrases; Nouns; Parent Associations; Parents; Predictor Variables; Preschool Children; Quasiexperimental Design; Resistance (Psychology); Semantics; Sentences; Spontaneous speech; Study and teaching; Syntax; Tense; Toddlers; Toys; Verbs; Vocabulary development; Young Children
• ISSN: 1092-4388; 1558-9102; 1558-9102
• DOI: 10.1044/2017_JSLHR-L-17-0008

Purpose: This follow-up study examined whether a parent intervention that increased the diversity of lexical noun phrase subjects in parent input and accelerated children's sentence diversity (Hadley et al., 2017) had indirect benefits on tense/agreement (T/A) morphemes in parent input and children's spontaneous speech. Method: Differences in input variables related to T/A marking were compared for parents who received toy talk instruction and a quasi-control group: input informativeness and full is declaratives. Language growth on tense agreement productivity (TAP) was modeled for 38 children from language samples obtained at 21, 24, 27, and 30 months. Parent input properties following instruction and children's growth in lexical diversity and sentence diversity were examined as predictors of TAP growth. Results: Instruction increased parent use of full is declaratives (? = 0.25) but not input informativeness. Children's sentence diversity was also a significant time-varying predictor of TAP growth. Two input variables, lexical noun phrase subject diversity and full is declaratives, were also significant predictors, even after controlling for children's sentence diversity. Conclusions: These findings establish a link between children's sentence diversity and the development of T/A morphemes and provide evidence about characteristics of input that facilitate growth in this grammatical system.