The emergence of syntactic relations in preschool children

Authors

  • Grauben José Alves de Assis
  • Cristiane Franco Élleres
  • Maria Elizângela Carvalho Sampaio

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5380/psi.v10i1.5786

Keywords:

equivalence, sentences, sintatic relations, children

Abstract

The present study investigated the emergence of new three-word sentences in relation to the ordinal position of the word in each sentence. Five preschool children, all non-fluent readers, were exposed to three sets of stimuli: pictures, capital letters, and lower case letters. After teaching the conditional relations, AB and AC tests were administered. Then the children were subjected to a chaining procedure on three different sentences. On the first trial, a word was presented in the “choice área”. Touching this word caused it to move into the ‘construction área”, and activated a graphic animation. Following this, two words were presented simultaneously, and the participant had to touch each one of them in turn. Following baseline, tests were administered to verify whether the new sentences emerged. Finally, a reading comprehension test was given. All children met the error-free criterion. On tests of connectivity and reading comprehension, all participants displayed fluent reading. These results demonstrate the emergence of new sentences. In conclusion, stimuli utilized were considered to be functionally equivalent, and influenced ordinal functions because of the position of each in the sentences.

 

Keywords: equivalence; sentences; sintatic relations; children.

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How to Cite

de Assis, G. J. A., Élleres, C. F., & Sampaio, M. E. C. (2006). The emergence of syntactic relations in preschool children. Interação Em Psicologia, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.5380/psi.v10i1.5786

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2006)

Section

Articles

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