MEASURES OF SYNTAX IN SCHOOL-AGE-CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Syntactic measures developed for preschool children are insensitive to later-developing forms produced by older children. Information concer ning syntax in school-age children and adolescents is available but ha s not yet emerged as a set of measures widely used by speech-language pathologists. This article identifies sources of information about syn tax from language samples (spoken and written) and from standardized l anguage tests. Language samples yield information on sentence length, clause density, and use of higher level, discourse-motivated structure s. Syntactic subtests from three standardized language tests for schoo l-age children and adolescents are analyzed in order to determine stru ctural content and processing format.