A Comparison of Grammatical Morpheme Usage by Four Year Olds With Normal, Impaired, and Late Developing Language

The purpose of this study was to determine whether language-disordered four-year-old children and those with a history of language delay but currently normal functioning would have acquired a significantly lower percentage of 13 grammatical morphemes than children of the same age with normal language skills. Research has shown that there is a consistency of order in which these morphemes are acquired in children with normal language ability. Studies have also shown that while language disordered children acquire these grammatical morphemes in a similar order, the process is slowed down. Language disordered children have difficulty with grammatical morpheme development. Not found in the research is information regarding grammatical morpheme development for children with normal language skills but a history of language delay. Does grammatical morpheme development still pose a problem for these children? Is grammatical morpheme development for this population consistent in terms of order of acquisition with normal and language disordered children? Does acquisition of these morphemes still show deficiencies when language skills have progressed into the normal range? Do patterns of grammatical morpheme development demonstrate distinct features for these children? These are the questions that the present investigation sought to answer