GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES IN THE SPEECH OF DIFFERENTLY ABLED

CHILDREN OF MODERATE LEVEL

Language acquisition is a complex, dynamic and an ongoing process. Language

incorporates phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects and the
development of each of these skills is crucial for acquisition of language.
It is normal for children to speak by 15 months of age. By 30 months they speak in a way
that most of what they say should be able to understand by strangers. By 24 months most
children include some conventional grammatical features in their utterances. By 36 months they
use a majority of syntactic rules in their language. But in the case of differently abled, the
language development is lower in all aspects of language skills and the final achievements are
lower, in spite of the fact that the stages and order of acquisition stage are similar to normal
peers. (Rosenberg; 1982 cited in P.A. Suresh et al; 1994).
According to the American Association on Mental retardation, 2002, Mental retardation
is a disability characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in
adaptive behaviour as expressed in conceptual, social and practical adaptive skills. This disability
originated before age 18
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV,1994) classifies
four different degrees of mental retardation, that is, mild, moderate, severe and profound.
Levels of Mental Retardation

Levels

IQ

% of Retarded Population

Mild

50-55 to 70

85

Moderate

35-40 to 50-55

10

Severe

20-25 to 35-40

3.5

Profound

20-25

1.5

Here I have taken into consideration about the language of the moderate level of the so called
differently abled.

Mean Length of Utterances (MLU) Analysis

Children develop expressive language skills in the same sequential order. As they mature,
the length of their utterances increases. Consequently it is possible to relate the length of an
utterance to a childs age. As the basic element of language is the morpheme, it is appropriate to
determine average or mean length of a childs utterances in relation to morphemes rather than
words. This takes into account the childs developing morphological skills as well as their
syntactic skills.
Roger Brown conducted a longitudinal study based on three children and determined
certain critical stages of syntactic development. He developed five stages of language
development that provide a guide to the development of the major language components. Brown
denoted changes in mean length of utterances in morphemes (MLU-M) across each age. MLU-M
is a measure of utterance length based on the average number of free and bound morphemes
contained in a spontaneously produced set of utterances. Brown asserted that the MLU-M
measure is a reliable index for predicting childs grammatical development.
Usually, a sample of 50 to 100 utterances is analyzed to draw conclusions about the
childs overall language production. Each word a child produces is broken down into
morphemes. After counting the total number of free and bound morphemes of the childs
utterances, they are divided by the total number of utterances. The formula is as follows,
MLU= Total number of morphemes/Total number of utterances
A childs MLU typically corresponds closely to their age.

The following table outlines five stages of language development based on MLU.
Table 9
Browns stages of development
Approximate Age
Stage

MLU

(In Months)

1.0-2.0

12-26

II

2.0-2.5

27-30

III

2.5-3.0

31-34

IV

3.0-3.75

35-40

3.75-4.5

41-46

V+

4.5+

47+

Source: Compiled from Brown (1973)

Stage I is characterized by single word utterances. Stage II is characterized by the
appearance of grammatical morphemes. By stage III, the child produces simple sentence forms
such as yes/no sentences, wh question forms, imperatives and negatives. Stage IV is marked by
the beginnings of embedding of phrases and clauses within another sentence. Finally stage V is
characterized by conjoining or by compound sentences. It must be stressed that each stage has
some characteristic linguistic modifications.
Review
Schiefelbusch, 1967 observes that retarded children are slow to acquire language. They often
remain at the prelinguistic stage longer than other children, using vocalization, facial expression,
and gesture for communication. The onset of the first words is at a later chronological age.
Morphology, syntax and semantics will be delayed, although the content and form may not differ
too markedly from that of a younger normal child.
Slobin, 1973 (quoted in Cruickshank,1955) states, organize, and store linguistic that in order for
a child to construct a grammar of his language, he must have two basic cognitive capacities. i. to
cognize the physical and social events that are encoded in language, and ii. To process, organize,
and store linguistic information.

A number of studies have described the morphological development of retarded children

according to their performance on tests that ask the children to apply morphological inflexions.
The results shown that morphological inflextions were learned in the same sequence by both
retarded and normal populations, but the performance of the retarded children was poorer than
normals matched for mental age (Dever1972; Lovell and Bradbury, 1967; Newfield and
Schlanger, 1968) (as quoted in Lois Bloom & Margaret Lahey, 1978)
Milgram states that the retarded child does not necessarily have a permanent deficit in language,
but have a developmental lag in language acquisition. The modern linguistic view is that the
normal children has actually acquired almost all of his language before school age. Retardates
also will have fully developed language when his mental age reaches the same level, at a time
nearer adulthood; his language develops late but ultimately catches up.
Need and Significance of the Study
Any child living in a communicating world, if having any difficulty in listening and
talking, it represents a serious problem that cannot be resolved easily. Language skills are the key
skills to help individual to lead an independent life in the community, because most of the day to
day activities can be performed through communication skills. It is important to help the
mentally retarded children to become independent as far as possible in their life. So there is a
need for research regarding the communication problems of the retardate children. It will be very
useful to the special education schools and all the professionals who are working with the
differently abled, the parents and all others directly or indirectly related to these children for a
general awareness and can improve them in a more meaningful way
Objectives of the study
The main objectives of the present study are,

Method

i.

To analyse the grammatical categories in the speech of differently abled of

ii.

moderate level.
To calculate the Mean Length of utterance and approximate age of this

iii.

population.
To see the morphological development of the population

Sampling and Data Collection

The cases for the present study are selected from the State Institute for the Mentally
Handicapped (SIMH) located in Pangappara, Thiruvananthapuram. Five differently abled
children of moderate level have been selected for the study. The selection of cases includes many
criteria such as age, severity of retardation, type of family, behaviour problem, place of
residence, mode of institutionalization, verbal or non verbal, family background and educational
status of the family. The cases of the present study ranges from 12-16, an adolescent group by
which age, most of the basic processes of language acquisition will be completed even in
retardation.
Table 4
Sampling criteria

SI.No

Criteria

Feature selected

Age

Between 12-16

Severity of Retardation

Moderate (IQ 35-40 to 50-55)

Type of family

Nuclear

Behaviour problem

Yes

Verbal or nonverbal

Verbal

Place of residence

Rural

Family Background

Low class

Educational Background of the family

Moderate

Mode of Institutionalization

Day scholars

Table 5
Age and IQ range of the cases

Case

Age

IQ

Case 1A

14

36

Case 2 B

14

36

Case 3 C

14

38

Case 4 D

15

36

Case 5E

14

40

Their communication skills are elicited by observing them in natural settings, interacting
with them directly, and by interviewing them in an informal way with the help of the Language
Assessment Tool. The data is elicited with the use of some pictures, toys and with the help of an
imitation task, especially for action words. Communication skills are assessed separately on each
child.
Mean Length of Utterances (MLU) analysis
The recorded data is transcribed and analysed in SALT Sotware for getting MLU and
Grammatical categories. SALT, the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts, is a computer
program designed to help to analyze and interpret language samples during a communicative
interaction. Once transcribed the data can be coded and can be analysed in SALT software.

Result and Discussion

MLU analysis discovers the quantity of morphemes and words pronounced by the child. It gives
the count of morphemes and words per total utterances produced by the child. If the Mean
Length of Utterances value is high the child is able to produce more complex sentences and if the
value is less it means that the child produces only simple utterances.
The mean length of utterances pronounced by each case is given below. The mean length
of utterances in words and morphemes are given along with the Browns stages of development.
Stages are determined by the childs Mean Length of Utterances with reference to Browns chart
(Brown, 1973).

Table 23
MLU Count of the cases
Case

MLU in words

MLU in

Approximate

Browns

morphemes

age range in

stages

Months
A

1.42

1.94

18-31

Late I

1.07

1.09

16-26

Early I

1.04

1.68

18-31

Late I

1.83

1.94

18-31

Late I

1.69

2.06

21-35

II

The case B reaches the stage early I and the cases A, C, and D reaches the Browns stage of Late
I. Only the case E reaches the stage II. and The following is the graphical representation of the
MLU in words and morphemes of each case. It shows that the Mean Length of Utterances
produced by the cases are very less. Brown stages of development shows V+ stages. Here the
cases didnt reach beyond the second stage. Stage I is characterized by single word utterances
and the Stage II is characterized by the appearance of grammatical morphemes.
By stage III, the child produces simple sentence forms such as yes/no sentences, wh
question forms, imperatives and negatives. Stage IV is marked by the beginnings of embedding
of phrases and clauses within another sentence. Finally stage V is characterized by conjoining or
by compound sentences. So no cases has attained these syntactic features.
The grammatical categories in the speech of these children are as follows,

CaseMarkers
8
7
6
AccM

GenM

LocM
DatM

InstM

2
1
0
A

A
AccM
GenM
LocM
DatM
InstM

The use of Locative case marker is more compared to other case markers. Then the dative,
accusative and genitive markers respectively. The cases do not use instrumental case markers.

Tense Markers
8
7
6
5
Present

Past
Future

3
2
1
0
A

Present
Past
Future

Among case markers, future tense markers are used more . Use of past tense markers seemed less
and complicated.
Other Grammatical Categories
40
35
30

Noun
Verb

25

Pronoun

20

Con.M
Neg.M

15

Num

10

Adj

5
0
A

A
Noun
Verb
Pronoun
Con.M
Neg.M
Num
Adj

The grammatical categories seen the speech of the cases are Noun, verb, pronoun, connective
markers, negative markers, Numerals and adjectives. They mostly use noun and verbs. So it is

clear that they use grammatical categories very less in number except noun and verb. It is very
difficult for them to use pronoun, connective markers, negative and other question forms,
adjectives, adverbs etc.
To summarize the results, It has been seen from the study that they are in the Browns stage of II
even in their adolescent age of 15 where as normal children attains the developmental stage of
V+ by this age. There is significant difference in the use of grammatical categories by the
normals and the differently abled population even in moderate level.
Further studies could be carried out in this field including more cases and data since it is an
initial attempt in this regard. A larger group of children can be taken for the task with different
levels of language proficiency.