Summary of School-Age Child's Development of Language Form

Language development in the school-age period consists of simultaneous expansion of existing syntactic forms and acquisition of new forms. A child continues with internal sentence expansion by elaborating the noun and verb phrases. Conjoining and embedding functions also expand. Additional structures include the passive form.

Age in Years	Syntax/Morphology	Phonology
5	Produces short passives with lost, left, and broken
6	Comprehends parallel embedding, imperative commands, -man and -er suffix Uses many plural nouns	Identifies syllables Masters rule for /s/, /z/, and /əz/ pluralization Is able to manipulate sound units to rhyme and produce stems
7	Comprehends because Follows adult ordering of adjectives	Recognizes unacceptable sound sequences
8	Uses full passives (80% of children) Uses -er suffix to mark initiator of an action (teacher) Is able to judge grammatical correctness separate from semantics	Is able to produce all American English sounds and blends
9	Comprehends and uses tell and promise
10	Comprehends and uses ask Comprehends because consistently Uses pronouns to refer to elements outside immediate sentence Understands difference between definitely, probably, and possibly
11	Comprehends if and though Creates much with mass nouns Uses -er for instrument (eraser)
12		Uses stress contrasts

Excerpt from Language Development: An Introduction, by R.E. Owens, Jr., 2008 edition, p. 338.

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