Assessing mentally handicapped children's use of sentence structuring rules

Mentally handicapped children's use of two-word sentence rules was examined in three different contexts (involving pictorial and object material) and on two separate occasions (4 weeks apart). 'Action + Object' sentences were the most frequently given throughout and were elicited more often with objects than with pictures. However the children showed little consistency in their sentence usage across the three contexts and over the two sessions. Hence this study highlights the need for language assessments to be done within a range of contexts and on a repeated basis in order to obtain accurate information on which to base teaching programmes and to evaluate their effectiveness.