Modes of speech as a developmental hierarchy: A descriptive study

The purpose of the present study was to (1) determine whether a developmental hierarchy exists for communicative competence in much the same way that it exists for linguistic competence and to test whether the modes of speech continuum adequately accounts for this hierarchy, (2) investigate the interaction of form and function by examining whether a relationship exists between the child's mastery of linguistic forms and his/her ability to meet complex functional demands.

Two separate instruments were used to gather speech samples from 86 children from three preschools. In order to describe the linguistic competence of the children in three age groups, a picture elicitation technique was employed to collect utterances which were then linguistically analyzed and categorized as simple and generalized transformations. Results indicated that communicative competence increased with age and suggested a hierarchy from context‐centered probes through topic‐centered probes. Linguistic competence, characterized as simple and generalized transformations, increased with age. More evidence of a developmental trend existed for subjects’ utterances characterized as generalized transformations.