Children's understanding and production of sentences

Abstract

Children, ages 3 to 6, and adults were tested on their understanding and production of sentences varying on two dimensions, type and complexity. The order of understanding sentence types, from easiest to hardest, was active, question, passive, negative. The order of production of sentence types was active, negative, question, passive. Simple sentences were understood significantly better than center-embedding and double-embedding sentences. Single-embedding sentences were understood as well as simple sentences but were produced more poorly than simple sentences for all ages. Center and double-embedding sentences were produced infrequently by all ages. The effect of age on understanding and production is described. © 1969 Academic Press, Inc. All rights reserved.