Language Intervention and the Effect on Passive Comprehension – A pilot-study Lone Sundahl Olsen, ph.D. Student, University of Aalborg, Denmark Master Thesis in Psychology Supervisor: Kristine Jensen de Lopéz. Each child was given a comprehension score calculated as the percentages of items in the picture matching task answered correctly (out of 12 passive and 12 active items). Intervention type affected performance. Children that heard stories with passive sentences showed higher comprehension of passive constructions in the posttest than children that heard stories with active sentences. One debate in the field of language acquisition concerns the mechanisms underlying the relation between input and syntactic development. Some have suggested that input function as a trigger that allows young children to set the parameters of their language (Chomsky, 1981). In this view syntactic development is based largely on innate structures. Differences among individuals in their level of language skills are attributed to variations in their genetic predispositions rather than to variations in the input (Pinker 1994). Contrasting evidence suggests that the amount and the nature of the input are related to the level of syntactic skills individual children achieve (Tomasello 2000). A study by Vasilyeva; Huttenlocher & Waterfal (2006) on effects of Language Intervention on Syntactic Skill Levels in Preschoolers confirm this hypothesis. Participants: 10 typical Danish children, age years (mean 4,7 SD 7,5) Pre- and Posttests of the children’s ability to comprehend passive constructions was assessed through a picture matching task (Fig. 1). The task was inspired by Van der Lely, The child was presented to three pictures and asked to match passive or active sentences by pointing to the corresponding picture e.g. “the cat is being washed by the cat”. Figure 1: Picture-matching task. Design of the intervention: Experimental group: 5 children presented to four stories containing 55% of the sentences in passive voice, while the remaining sentences were in active voice. Control group: 5 children presented to four stories in active voice. The stories, on average had 65 sentences. Research Question: Can mastery of the passive construction, which is acquired relatively late acquired in Danish (Lone Sundahl 2006) be enhanced by exposing children to narrative materials with a large concentration of passives? In accordance with the results of the Vasilyeva; Huttenlocher & Waterfall (2006) study Danish children’s passive comprehension seem to be affected by input factors. However, this pilot study rests on a small sample size and requires further investigation. The results may challenge the maturation hypothesis, which would predict the intervention to have no effect on the comprehension. More research is needed. The input in this pilot study was only a small amount of the total amount of input children received over the week this pilot study was running, still there seem to be an affect. Method Introduction Aim Results Conclusions - Chomsky, N.(1986): Language and mind. New York: Harecourt. -Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990): Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13(4): Sundahl, L. (2006): Tilegnelsen af passivkonstruktionen i dansk – en teoretisk og empirisk belysning af udviklingen af pasivforståelse hos danske førskolebørn. Master Thesis. -Tomasello, M: (2000): Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition, 74, approach. In: Barret, M. (ed.): The Development of Language. East Sussex: Psychology Press Van der Lely, H: (1996): The Test of Active and Passive Sentences (TAPS). University College London, UK - Vasilyeva, M.; Huttenlocher, J. & Waterfall, H. (2006): Effects of Language Intervention on Syntactic Skill Levels in Preschoolers. Developmental pscyhology, vol 42, pp I am grateful to: The children who participated in the research. References