Preschool Children’s Response Patterns
on the TEGI Past Tense Probe
JULIE F. ROSENTHAL, ELIZABETH J. SPENCER, and C. MELANIE SCHUELE ♦ VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT
This study examined the response patterns of typical preschool children
(n = 29) on the past tense probe of the Test of Early Grammatical
Impairment. Children accurately marked past tense on regular verbs
more frequently than irregular verbs but marked finiteness with equal
frequency for regular and irregular verbs. Patterns of performance with
respect to the features of the target verb (e.g., past-tense allomorph) and
clinical implications will be discussed.
INTRODUCTION
METHODS
PROCEDURE
Children were administered the TEGI, which evaluates the tense marking abilities
of children. This study focuses on the Past Tense Probe of the TEGI that evaluates
children’s ability to mark regular and irregular past tense verbs. The Past Tense
Probe is a picture elicitation task, with eighteen test items, ten to elicit regular verbs
and eight to elicit irregular verbs. For each item the child was shown two pictures.
The examiner described the first picture using a target verb and asked the child to
describe the second one. The child was prompted to respond with a complete
sentence. Responses were recorded on-line and audio-recorded.
Regular and irregular past tense verb marking develops during the
preschool years. Children demonstrate knowledge of the regular past
tense marker prior to developing mastery of the rules of regular and
irregular past tense verbs, evidenced by errors such as
overgeneralization (e.g., catched; Kuczaj, 1977). Irregular past tense
forms may present particular difficulty for children; children must learn
both the regular past tense rule as well as the exceptions to that rule.
Exploration of the patterns of development of past tense marking in
preschool children will advise understanding of normal language
development as well as inform intervention for children with language
impairment. Limited evidence exists to examine the production of regular
and irregular past tense markers across many different verbs, which vary
in familiarity and phonology. The Test of Early Grammatical Impairment
(TEGI; Rice & Wexler, 2001) allows for close analysis of children's
production of regular and irregular past tense verb forms, with useful
applications for researchers and clinicians. Clinicians will be interested in
how this instrument can provide information on children’s past tense
development.
The purpose of this study was to explore the response patterns of typical
children on an elicited measure of past tense production.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. For each item, what percentage of children produced the target verb
with a scorable response?
2. When a scorable target verb was elicited, what percentage of
children produced the correct past tense form? What percentage of
children marked finiteness?
Regular Past Tense
Irregular Past Tense
Examiner: Here the boy is raking. Now
he is done. Tell me what he did.
Child: He raked the leaves.
Examiner: Here the girl is catching. Now
she is done. Tell me what she did.
Child: She caught the ball.
Research Question 2: When a scorable target verb was
elicited, what percentage of children produced the correct
past tense form? What percentage of children marked
finiteness?
Regular Verbs
METHODS
PARTICIPANTS
•
•
•
•
•
29 preschool children between the ages of 3;0 and 4;11
Mean age: 47.9 months (SD = 7.51)
15 boys, 14 girls
Participants in a study of the development of complex syntax
2 sets of twins: 1 identical, 1 fraternal
Children were recruited from two preschools in the greater Nashville
area that served primarily middle and upper middle income families. All
children were monolingual speakers of English. No children were
enrolled in speech-language therapy. On the Preschool Language
Scale-4, the group mean was 117.86 (SD = 13.11). On the Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test-III, the group mean was 111.86 (SD = 15.45).
Irregular Verbs
Correct
Past Form
93.30%
91.30%
89.30%
87.00%
82.60%
80.00%
78.90%
76.20%
72.70%
50.00%
Verb
plant
kick
tie
pick
jump
paint
climb
brush
clean
lift
Finite
93.30%
91.30%
92.90%
91.30%
87.00%
80.00%
84.20%
85.70%
72.70%
50.00%
Verb
eat
give
make
ride
catch
blow
write
dig
Correct
Past Form
74.10%
63.20%
54.50%
27.80%
26.30%
24.00%
23.50%
0.00%
Finite
85.20%
78.90%
100.00%
61.10%
84.20%
92.00%
64.70%
85.00%
Findings: Children were more likely to produce correct past tense forms of
regular verbs (M = 80.1%, SD = 12.5%) than irregular verbs (M = 36.7%, SD =
24.7; p < .00, d = 2.22). However, children did not differ in finite marking for
regular (M = 82.8%, SD = 13.2%) and irregular verbs (M = 81.4%, SD =
13.0%; p = .82, d = .11).
Research Question 3: When a target verb was elicited, what
were the patterns of errors?
Regular past tense can be formed with one of three allomorphs, /t/ as in
kicked, /d/ as in tied, and /əd/ as in painted.
Child responses were evaluated using a coding system adapted from the TEGI. A
first level of analysis addressed whether the child used the target verb for each test
item. A second level of analysis explored the child’s marking of past tense on each
response. All child responses were scored by the first author and a research
assistant trained in the coding system. All mismatches in coding were resolved by
mutual agreement.
Verb
Unscorable:
No response or I don’t know:
Correct regular or irregular form:
Bare stem regular or irregular:
Over-regularization of irregular bare stem:
Over-regularization of irregular past form:
Regular verb overmarked:
Irregular bare stem overmarked:
Irregular verb past form overmarked:
He did rake.
I don’t know.
He raked. She caught.
He rake. She catch.
She catched.
She caughted.
He raked-ed.
She catched-ed.
She caughted-ed.
RESULTS
Research Question 1: For each item, what percentage of
children produced the target verb with a scorable response?
Regular Verbs
Percent
Verb
Children
tie
97%
paint
86%
kick
79%
jump
79%
pick
79%
clean
76%
brush
72%
climb
66%
lift
55%
plant
52%
Regular Errors
Correct
Past
Overmarked
Form
painted
planted
lifted
Irregular Verbs
Percent
Verb
Children
eat
93%
blow
86%
dig
69%
catch
66%
give
66%
ride
62%
write
59%
make
38%
Findings: On average, the target verb was produced with a scorable response
by 71% of children. Children were equally likely to produce scorable responses
for regular verbs (M = 74%, SD = 13%) and irregular verbs (M = 67%, SD =
16%, p < .00).
Bare
stem
80.0%
93.3%
50.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
20.0%
6.7%
50.0%
91.3%
82.6%
87.0%
76.2%
0.0%
4.4%
4.4%
9.5%
8.7%
13.0%
8.7%
14.3%
89.3%
72.7%
78.9%
3.6%
0.0%
5.3%
7.1%
27.3%
15.8%
/t/
kicked
jumped
picked
brushed
/d/
tied
cleaned
climbed
Correct
ate
26.3%
54.5%
23.5%
27.8%
0.0%
74.1%
24.0%
63.2%
28
25
23
23
23
22
21
19
16
15
eat
blow
dig
catch
give
ride
write
27
25
20
19
19
18
17
0
2
4
2
3
4
3
4
5
7
finish
stop, made
play (2), throw,
splash (2), have, stay down, make
make, pull, smell
made (2), finish
stop (2), fix, use, look
paint (2), make, go (2), hang
pick (6), clean (2), play
dig (2), make (2), water, finish, paint
Irregular Errors
Bare
Over-reg
Stem
Stem
eat
eated
15.8%
57.9%
0.0%
45.5%
35.3%
41.2%
38.9%
27.8%
15.0%
85.0%
14.8%
11.1%
8.0%
60.0%
21.1%
15.8%
Over-reg
Past
ated
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
5.6%
0.0%
0.0%
8.0%
0.0%
1
2
5
4
5
6
3
say
eat, bring
make (4)
play (3), stop, fall down (2)
want, make (2), open
tie (5)
draw (3), stop, go, make, color, say,
play
Findings: Children substituted a wide variety of verbs. Patterns of
substitution may have reflected children’s familiarity with the verb or
cues from the picture stimuli.
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES
PATTERNS OF ERROR FOR IRREGULAR VERBS
Verb
Regular Verbs
tie
paint
kick
jump
pick
clean
brush
climb
lift
plant
The TEGI is a useful clinical tool for examination of past tense
production. In addition to using the test to identify children with
language impairment, clinicians might analyze patterns of response to
identify error patterns (e.g., overgeneralization of regular past tense
marking to irregular verbs). The identified error patterns can guide
intervention.
Findings: Performance did not differ substantially across the three
allomorphs.
Example eat
catch
make
write
ride
dig
eat
blow
give
Substituted Verbs
(No. Children)
The present study provides an examination of children's production of
regular and irregular past tense verb forms. Children produced
scorable responses on the picture elicitation task from the TEGI with
equal frequency for regular and irregular verbs. Initial analysis
suggests that preschool children are able to mark finiteness with
comparable success for regular and irregular verbs, although children
are more likely to produce correct regular past tense verbs. The most
frequent error for irregular verbs was an overgeneralization of a bare
stem (e.g., eated) suggesting that children are applying a regular past
tense marking rule to irregular verbs. Further research that includes a
larger sample size can explore this hypothesis. When children did not
produce the target verb, a wide variety of verbs were substituted.
Substitutions may have been influenced by verb familiarity or cues
from the picture. Other influences of past tense marking such as verb
familiarity can be explored in studies with a wider variety of verbs.
/əd/
TYPES OF RESPONSES:
No. of
No. of
Target
Unscorable
Forms
Responses
Produced
Irregular Verbs
PATTERNS OF ERROR FOR REGULAR VERBS
RESPONSE SCORING
Research Question 4: What verbs were substituted
when the target verb was not elicited?
Verb
3. When a target verb was elicited, what were the patterns of errors?
4. What verbs were substituted when the target verb was not elicited?
RESULTS
RESULTS
Total
Finite
84.2%
100.0%
64.7%
61.1%
85.0%
85.2%
92.0%
78.9%
Findings: The most frequent error was over-regularization of the bare stem
(M = 43.0%, SD = 24.7%). The next most frequent error was production of a
bare stem (M = 18.6%, SD = 13.0%, p < .00).
Kuczaj, S. (1977). The acquisition of regular and irregular past tense
forms. Journal of Verbal Learning and Behavior, 16, 589-600.
Rice, M., & Wexler, K. (2001). Rice/Wexler Test of Early Grammatical
Impairment. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study involves a secondary analysis of data collected
regarding children’s complex syntax development (NIH/NIDCD
DC007329).
This study was completed as part of the undergraduate Peabody
Scholars program at Vanderbilt University.
Author Contacts:
[email protected]
[email protected]