Syntactic complexity has been recognized as an important construct in writing research, and for the past five decades, many syntactic complexity measures (SCMs) have been examined in numerous studies. This systematic review is the first study of its kind to synthesize 36 studies spanning from 1970 to 2019 by identifying and cataloging all SCMs…

Background: Complex syntax is affected by developmental language disorder (DLD) during the school years. Targeting areas of syntactic difficulty for children with DLD may yield useful assessment techniques. Aims: To determine whether wh-movement can be measured in language samples from typically developing mono- and bilingual school-aged children,…

Dynamic written corrective feedback (DWCF) is a pedagogical approach that offers meaningful, manageable, constant, and timely corrective feedback on student writing (Hartshorn et al., 2010). It emphasizes indirect and comprehensive written error correction on short, daily writing assignments. Numerous studies have demonstrated that its use can…

Subject relative clauses (SRCs) are typically processed more easily than object relative clauses (ORCs), but this difference is diminished by an inanimate head-noun in semantically non-reversible ORCs ("The book that the boy is reading"). In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the influence of animacy on online processing of…

Background: Studies have shown that word dictation and syntactic skills are significant predictors of written composition performance among Chinese children in elementary grades. However, there is a paucity of research on the bidirectional relationships between these two cognitive-linguistic skills (i.e., word dictation and syntactic skills) and…

Purpose: Conducting in-depth grammatical analyses based on language samples can be time consuming. Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) and the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn) analyses provide detailed information regarding the grammatical profiles of children and can be conducted using free computer-based software. Here, we provide a tutorial…

We used the elicited production task to explore the production of short and long passives in 15 Mandarin-speaking preschool children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD; aged 4;2-5;11) in comparison with 15 Typically Developing Aged-matched (TDA) children (aged 4;3-5;8) and 15 Typically Developing Younger (TDY) children (aged 3;2-4;3). This…

Background: Although there is a growing body of literature on cognitive and language processing in bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD), there is a major gap in the evidence for language intervention. Critically, speech-language therapists are often required to make clinical decisions for language intervention on specific…

Background: The language of the science curriculum is complex, even in the early grades. To communicate their scientific observations, children must produce complex syntax, particularly complement clauses (e.g., "I think it will float;" "We noticed that it vibrates"). Complex syntax is often challenging for children with…

This research employed an auto ethnographic study. It is a method used to describe the journey of the researcher in teaching English Syntax for two years in academic years 2016 to 2017. The problem in this research is how the lecturer implemented the communicative approach in teaching English Syntax in a Higher Education Context. The Method used…

This study examined the extent of perspective taking and language features represented in secondary students' text-based analytical writing. We investigated: (1) whether perspective taking is related to writing quality, accounting for language features in writing; (2) whether students' English learner status is related to perspectives represented…

This study investigates the hypothesis that non-isomorphic syntax-semantics mappings pose a greater challenge for non-native (L2) than for native (L1) speakers, focusing on a previously understudied phenomenon. We carried out an antecedent judgment task with L1 German and L1 Russian-speaking, proficient L2 learners of German to examine Condition C…

Researchers have been investigating the effects of different planning conditions on learners' second language (L2) writing performance. However, whether such effects differ regarding specific planning conditions and task complexity has remained underexplored. This study examined the effects of pre-task planning (PTP) versus unpressured online…

Purpose: Transcription of conjoined independent clauses within language samples varies across professionals. Some transcribe these clauses as two separate utterances, whereas others conjoin them within a single utterance. As an inquiry into equitable practice, we examined rates of conjoined independent clauses produced by children and the impact…

Assessment of language skills for upper elementary and middle schoolers is important due to the strong link between language and reading comprehension. Yet, currently few practical, reliable, valid, and instructionally informative assessments of language exist. This study provides validation evidence for Monster, P.I., which is a gamified,…