THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGE AND MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE IN ACQUISITION OF TURKISH

In English and other languages, the relationship between age and mean length of utterance (MLU) has been well-established and MLU has long b een used as an index of grammatical development. This study examined t he age-MLU relationship in 95 children between the ages of 17-59 month s acquiring Turkish as a native language and found a strong correlatio n of r = .83 between the two factors. Guidelines for calculating MLU u sing Turkish data and tables to be used in predicting age from MLU and MLU from age have been provided. Benefits and shortcomings of the pro cess have been discussed.