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Learning by ear: on the acquisition of case and gender marking by German-speaking children with normal hearing and with cochlear implants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2004

GISELA SZAGUN
GISELA SZAGUN
Affiliation:
Institut für Psychologie, Universität Oldenburg
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Abstract

The acquisition of case and gender marking on the definite and indefinite article was studied in a sample of 6 normally-hearing children and 9 children with cochlear implants. Longitudinal spontaneous speech data are used. Children were matched by MLU, with 4 MLU levels: 1·8, 2·8, 3·6, 4·8. Age ranges for normally-hearing children were 1;4 to 3;8 and for children with cochlear implants 1;8 to 7;0. Frequencies of correctly marked article forms increased over MLU but less so in the hearing-impaired group. In both groups error rates were high. However, error patterns were different. In normally-hearing children errors of case predominated, in hearing-impaired children errors of gender and omission. Error patterns suggest that in normally-hearing children syntactic categorization interacts with input frequency and low discriminability of article forms. In the hearing-impaired group the article system is less advanced, despite higher frequencies of definite articles in adult speech. The predominance of article omission is discussed in terms of persisting perceptual problems or a working memory deficit.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 2004 , pp. 1 - 30
Copyright
2004 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Data collection and transcription for this research was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, grant No. Sz 41/5-1 and No. Sz 41/5-2. I am most grateful to the children and their parents who so willingly participated in this study. Sonja Arnhold-Kerri, Tanja Hampf, Elfrun Klauke, Stefanie Kraft, Dagmar Roesner, Claudia Steinbrink, Bettina Timmermann, and Sylke Wilken assisted in data collection and data transcription. I would like to thank them all. I would also like to thank Bodo Bertram and his team at the Cochlear Implant Centre. Hanover for having us there and giving us their friendly support.