Measures of Syntax in School-Age Children and Adolescents

Syntactic measures developed for preschool children are insensitive to later-developing forms produced by older children. Information concerning syntax in school-age children and adolescents is available but has not yet emerged as a set of measures widely used by speech-language pathologists. This article identifies several sources of information about syntax from language samples (spoken and written) and from standardized language tests. Language samples yield information on sentence length, clause density, and use of higher level, discourse-motivated structures. Syntactic subtests from three standardized language tests for school-age children and adolescents are analyzed in order to determine structural content and processing format.