Methods for Assessing Children's Syntax

The study of child language and, in particular, child syntax is a growing area of linguistic research, yet methodological issues often take a back seat to the findings and conclusions of specific studies in the field. This book is designed in part as a handbook to assist students and researchers in the choice and use of methods for investigating children's grammar. For example, a method (or combination of methods) can be chosen based on what is measured and who the target subject is. In addition to the selection of methods, there are also pointers for designing and conducting experimental studies and for evaluating research.

Methods for Assessing Children's Syntax combines the best features of approaches developed in experimental psychology and linguistics that ground the study of language within the study of human cognition. The first three parts focus on specific methods, divided according to the type of data collected: production, comprehension, and judgment. Chapters in the fourth part take up general methodological considerations that arise regardless of which method is used. All of the methods described can be modified to meet the requirements of a specific study.

Contributors: Helen Smith Cairns. Katherine Demuth. Jill de Villiers. Suzanne Flynn. Claire Foley. LouAnn Gerken. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff. Helen Goodluck. Peter Gordon. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. Jennifer Ryan Hsu. Louis Michael Hsu. Celia Jakubowicz. Laurence B. Leonard. Barbara Lust. Dana McDaniel. Cecile McKee. Thomas Roeper. Michele E. Shady. Karin Stromswold. Rosalind Thornton.

Language, Speech, and Communication series

Dana McDaniel is Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Southern Maine. Cecile McKee is Assistant Professor, University of Arizona. Helen Smith Cairns is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences, Queens College and Member of the Doctoral Faculties of the Ph.D. Programs in Linguistics and in Speech and Hearing Sciences, the Graduate School of the City University of New York.