Last on the agenda for our language development series is syntactic development.
Many times, when we have students with poor syntactic development; we know they have a poor sense of sentence structure, but aren’t sure which skills are causing problems.
The other problem is that we have information on typical syntactic development up through about age 5, but there aren’t many development charts for older kids.
With language in texts getting more complex through the school-age years; many of us are in dire need of guidelines that will show us how “normal” syntactic development should look.
Many of the earlier forms are being fine-tuned as we get older.
But as it turns out, there are several syntactic skills that show meaningful changes from Kindergarten through 12th grade.
This means that we can expect these skills to grow as children get over. This means that they’re related to students’ overall language abilities.
In other words, they’re both key indicators of growth AND important to academic success.
So while I can’t give you a cut-and-dry “this is what’s expected at each age and grade level” chart, I can point out what those key syntactic skills are so you know which skills to track.
I’m going to do that by diving in to one longitudinal developmental study done by Walter Loban (1976). I know this study has been around a while, but it deserves a full article’s worth of attention because it’s a landmark study with a massive amount of information.
You’ll also learn about a couple other key areas of syntactic development in this article review.
Participants
In this longitudinal study Loban tracked a sample of 338 children from ages 5 through 18 starting in 1953 (211 ended up staying in the study until the end).
Loban used three separate subgroups for his statistical analysis:
The “high” group: students with high language ability
The “low” group: students with low language ability
The “random” group: students randomly selected from the sample regardless of language ability
Students were placed in the “low” or “high” groups based on their performance on their initial assessments at the start of the study.
Purpose and Methods
One of Loban’s goals was to find out if we could define definite stages of language development.
He also wanted to find out if language development follows a predictable sequence, and if there were typical levels of proficiency for specific language skills across grade levels.
*A side note here: After reading the entire article, you’ll start to understand why the, “What language skills are expected at each grade level?” question is still such a mystery to so many of us today and why no simple syntactic development charts exist for school-age.
Loban used the following measurement tools list of measurements over the course of the study to track language use:
Transcripts of oral interviews
Written compositions starting at grade 3
Stanford or California Reading Achievement Test (depending on availability during testing periods)
IQ Tests
STEP Test of Listening Ability
5-Point Teacher Rating Scale for Listening Skills
Test of Use of Conjunctive Adverbs
Teacher Rating of Language Skills (measured use of vocabulary, organization, and quality of ideas)
Book lists read by students
Results
Some of the key findings of this study were in the area of syntactic development.
One pattern that emerged was that children of low SES used less sophisticated syntactic structures than those of higher SES.
Across all ages and ability levels, reading, listening, writing, and speaking abilities were strongly correlated. This means that a problem in one area makes it more likely that there is a problem in one of the other areas.
So far, no surprises. But let’s get in to some more detail on some specific things that changed over the years: the length of utterances and the use of subordination.
Length of Utterances
To measure the “quantity”, or the amount of words the participants were using; Loban measured the average number of words per C-unit across groups for both oral language samples and writing samples.
Loban found that the “high” group outperformed the “low” and “random” groups in both oral and written language.
For oral language, the increase in words per C-unit was linear, meaning it steadily increased all the way up through grade 12 for all groups, without any spurts or plateaus.
What I found somewhat disheartening was the stark difference in the “low” and “high” groups. Students who had “low” language at the beginning steadily increased, but they were on average about 4-5 years behind the high group.
That means that the “high” group was performing at the same level in 4th grade as the “low” group in 8th grade.
This highlights the need for intensive early interventions as soon as possible to reduce the gap in syntactic development (and other linguistic skills).
These findings show that as children get older, we can expect them to be able to give us longer phrases and sentences in oral language. This means that using C-units to transcribe language samples is something that SLPs use to track syntactic development if they have the time and resources to do so.
Written language was different; because there was a rapid increase around grades 9-10.
In grades 1-7 there was a big difference between the average words per C-unit across the three groups (low, high, and random), but after that the difference was less apparent.
These data suggest that we can expect a big boost in writing skills in early high school, and the difference in phrase/sentence length between low and high performers may taper off in high school.
Yet while C-units can tell us information about the “quantity”, it doesn’t tell us about the “quality” of language.
That’s why Loban also looked at the significant syntactic developments occurring throughout the years; one of them being subordination.
Use of Subordination
There’s a bit of debate about whether subordination is a sign that language is becoming more advanced.
When we use subordination, we form complex sentences using conjunctions and dependent clauses (also known as “subordinate clauses”, hence the term “subordination”). You can see some examples in the Ultimate Guide to Sentence Structure.
On one hand, dependent clauses can often provide additional clarification and information. In this sense, saying more is better; so we could conclude that using more subordinate clauses could be a sign of more advanced language skills.
Yet on the other hand, sometimes less is more.
There are times when long sentences become confusing and repetitive. There are ways to use advanced syntactic structures to make the sentences say the same thing with fewer words; so in that sense using less is actually more difficult.
Because there’s a debate as far as what constitutes “advanced” sentence structures, this makes the use of subordination a meaningful syntactic development.
This is why Loban dedicated an entire portion of his statistical analysis looking at how subordination develops through the school age years.
Loban’s results indicated that there was linear increase in dependent clauses in oral language up through grade 12; meaning that there was a steady upward climb.
There was also a steady climb in the use of dependent clauses in writing, although there was a plateau between grades 8-11. During this plateau, there wasn’t a significant difference in performance in the three groups (low, high, random).
When Loban compared the ratio of depending clauses in oral vs. written language, he found that the “high” group always had a greater percentage of dependent clauses in written vs. oral language as compared to the “low” group.
He interpreted this to mean that the “high” group was making more of a conscious effort to include more sophisticated language in their writing as compared to their oral language, while the low group’s writing style was more comparable to the language they use in conversation.
This conclusion makes sense, because students with more advanced language skills tend to be more metalinguistically aware.
As far as the debate on subordination goes, Loban concluded from these findings that we learn to add to what we’re saying before we learn to make our language more concise.
This means we can expect children to increase their use of subordination over the years, and we should see it as a sign that language skills are becoming more advanced.
Loban also looked at different types of clauses; and he found that most children start out using more noun clauses and gradually increase in their ability to use adverbial and adjectival clauses over time. This isn’t always a clean linear pattern across ages and ability levels; so you can check out the full-text of the article for more details on that.
Conclusions
In the conclusion of the article, Loban gave a helpful summary statement, but not before saying this:
“Drawing up a valid art chart of sequence and stages is hazardous; at any one age children vary tremendously in language ability.” (pp. 93)
This is essentially why there aren’t many “go-to” neat and clean charts out there that tell us what is expected at what age, because there are so many things to take in to account (like SES, or the amount of language children have when they come to school).
This also means that we need to be comfortable with not knowing all the answers about what is “normal”, and comfortable with the fact that factors outside our control can change what “normal” means for any given student.
It also makes us rethink the whole idea of having a system that defines a teacher’s or therapist’s success by whether or not their students meet the standards; although we do need something in place or else it would be complete chaos.
So while Loban didn’t give us a chart on syntactic development; he does do the next best thing; which is to give a general guideline for what meaningful language forms and start to emerge across the school age years.
Ages 5-6
Between the ages of 5 and 6, some significant developments include use of pronouns, past tense, and complex sentences. Usually children are beginning to use conditionality and causality in statements that explain why or because.
Ages 6-7
From ages 6-7, complex sentences increase (as does the use of subordination); including an increase in conditional clauses that start with words such as “if”.
Ages 7-8
Between ages 7-8, use of relative pronouns and subordinate clauses increases, and children start to use gerunds more frequently.
Ages 8-10
Subordination increases between ages 8-10, and they start to use more advanced conjunctions such as meanwhile, unless, even if, or although. They also become more proficient with present participle.
Ages 10-12
Between ages 10-12, because children’s cognitive growth enables them to have a better understanding of consequences, we see them better able to express this in their language as well.
Again, the complexity of subordination increases, and we also see more advanced auxiliary verbs like might, could, and should; and more proficient use of if this, then that statements. Adverbial and adjectival clauses also increase; which is part of their ability to use more advanced forms of subordination.
This is where Loban stopped in his summary; although the results he explained in his data analysis section give us additional information about what’s going on in high school (which I’ve hit the high points in my discussion on subordination and C-units).
This is a massive study, and I highly recommend you check out the entire document (I was able to get the full-text via the link I’ve shared). But if you’re feeling lost with knowing how to track syntactic development for older students, I highly recommend focusing on the areas highlighted by this study.
And, if you’re not sure what skills will be important to advance syntax skills; subordination is likely one of them.
For a more detailed breakdown and some examples of key syntactic structures that develop in the school-age years, be sure to check out this free guide.
This free guide is called The Ultimate Guide to Sentence Structure.
Inside you’ll learn exactly how to focus your language therapy. Including:
- The hidden culprit behind unexplained “processing problems” that’s often overlooked.
- The deceptively simple way to write language goals; so you’re not spending hours on paperwork (goal bank included).
- The 4 sentence types often behind comprehension and expression issues and why they’re so difficult.
- An easy-to-implement “low-prep” strategy proven to boost sentence structure, comprehension, and written language (conjunctions flashcards included).
References
