Case assignment in English-speaking children: a paired priming paradigm.
Lisa Wisman Weil, Laurence B Leonard
PMID 28556770WHAT IT FOUND
Hearing pronouns whose subject and object forms are the same made young children more likely to use him or her as subjects.
Those errors often included the -s verb ending. This shows input can shape pronoun errors, not treatment.
Key findings
01Children used him or her as subjects in a mean proportion of .41 after hearing pronouns whose subject and object forms were the same, compared with .26 after hearing pronouns whose forms differed.
02The -s verb ending appeared with him or her used as subjects much more than 10% of the time in both priming conditions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 21 children were analysed, and they were monolingual English-speaking children with typical language development, so it says little about children with language disorders or other languages. 6 additional children were enrolled but did not qualify, so the recruited sample was not fully analysed. The study used a laboratory priming task, so the errors may not reflect everyday speech. It tested responses in a priming task, not whether changing caregiver input or therapy would improve language.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that repeating pronouns whose subject and object forms are the same will cause lasting pronoun errors in children. The study only showed a priming effect in 21 typically developing children and did not test therapy or everyday speech.