Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Speech Communication
First Advisor
Mary E. Gordon
Term of Graduation
Spring 1975
Date of Publication
5-13-1975
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (M.S.) in Speech Communication: Speech and Hearing Sciences
Department
Speech Communication
Language
English
Subjects
People with mental disabilities -- Language, English language -- Inflection
DOI
10.15760/etd.2255
Physical Description
1 online resource (4, v, 75 pages)
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the development and use of certain grammatical morphemes, i.e., the English inflections for plural, possessive, present progressive and past tense in the speech of educable mentally retarded (EMR) adolescents. The performance on two grammatical tasks of EMR subjects was compared to that of normal control subjects matched by mental age scores. The first task was to produce, verbally, the required inflection for a novel (nonsense) word on a modified version of Berko's Test of English Morphology (BTEM). Secondly, subjects responded to grammatical contrasts in lexical or real words at levels of imitation, comprehension and production on a modified form of the Imitation, Comprehension and Production Test (ICP).
The results of this study revealed statistically significant poorer performance in the use of English inflections by EMR adolescents when compared with control subjects of similar mental age, specifically in the use of less common allomorphs for plural, possessive and past tense.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/15232
Recommended Citation
Richard, Nancy Barton, "The Development of Four English Inflections in the Speech of Educable Mentally Retarded Adolescents" (1975). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 2258.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.2255
Comments
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Speech Communication with Emphasis in Speech Pathology/Audiology.
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to pdxscholar@pdx.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.