Effect of Sampling Contexts on Children’s Use of Tense Markers

JohnMichael Mulderig, Communicative Disorders and Sciences

Analyzing the use of English past, present, first, and third person tense amongst English-Mandarin speaking children.

For this this project, I collected and analyzed data on children’s use of English tense markers (e.g., past tense -ed, be verbs, third person singular present -s) in various sampling contexts (e.g. picture description and story telling). This project focused on bilingual English-Mandarin speaking children. We sought to determine differences in percent correct usage of tense markers between the sampling contexts. The results may assist speech language pathology clinicians in assessing children’s development of grammatical skills, in general, and tense marking skills, in specific. The project is still in the analysis and interpretation phase. As the United States continues to become more culturally diverse, the need for a wider range of resources for different populations will be necessary. This includes the speech language pathology resources that this project focused on establishing. As an undergrad, this project allowed me to administer speech language pathology tests independently for the first time ever. This is extremely beneficial for my future career as a speech language pathologist. The digital badge activities provided structure and context to guide the process of completing this project. It also allowed for periods of self-reflection and tools to share this experience with future employers. Projects like this allow for increased knowledge and experience for the student, and provide valuable data and insights for emerging subfields in speech language pathology.