Complex Syntax Methods of Assessment: Relative Clauses

Relative clauses are a type of complex syntax in which a clause modifies a noun (e.g., “the dog that runs in the house”). Some children struggle to produce relative clauses and their difficulties may impact their academic performance. Assessments that measure children’s relative clause skill are thus needed to assess and monitor progress of intervention in children’s relative clause skill to increase these children’s communication and in turn, academic performance. The aim of this study was to compare commonly used assessments in the research literature, two sentence imitation tasks (a straight imitation task and a delayed imitation task) and one elicitation task (a toy elicitation task), to identify the most efficient measure that captures child skill. An age effect was found for the straight imitation task which suggests that this task can capture growth over time. There were no statistically significant differences between the straight imitation and toy elicitation tasks. This lack of statistical significance indicates that the straight imitation task, which appeared to yield similar results to the elicitation task and is more efficient to administer, may provide an equally valid measure of relative clause production skills. The use of a straight imitation task is suggested to provide speech-language pathologists and researchers with a relative clause assessment tool that will aid in relative clause intervention that is efficient, captures growth, and truly captures relative clause skill.