Abstract

The identification of complex grammatical structures including noun clauses is of clinical importance because differences in the use of these structures have been found between individuals with and without language impairment. In recent years, computer software has been used to assist in analyzing clinical language samples. However, this software has been unable to accurately identify complex syntactic structures such as noun clauses. The present study investigated the accuracy of new software, called Cx, in identifying finite wh- and that-noun clauses. Two sets of language samples were used. One set included 10 children with language impairment, 10 age-matched peers, and 10 language-matched peers. The second set included 40 adults with mental retardation. Levels of agreement between computerized and manual analysis were similar for both sets of language samples; Kappa levels were high for wh-noun clauses and very low for that-noun clauses.

Degree

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Communication Disorders

Rights

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