Language Sample

Jake is three years and three months old. I have known him since birth and have always found him to be an outgoing young child who has always been willing to talk to anyone after the initial shyness wears off. I have seen him develop linguistically through Brown's developmental stages. Without a second thought, he was the child I chose to observe for this language sample.

This language sample was taken on October 12 at his home. I was going to their house for dinner and due to traffic, arrived a bit later than expected. The kids had already eaten and Jake was growing tired. The following is the list of utterances from Jake in a twenty minute time frame.

Whose are these keys

They're Dad's keys

Dad, here are your keys

No I'm not hungry

I want milk

Mommy can I have some milk

Thanks

I finished my milk

All done

I'm tired

Can I go to sleep

Someone has to carry me

You have to mom

Can Daddy

Can you Daddy

Can you carry me up to my bed

I want to go to my bed now

Yeah, put me in bed

Goodnight

Goodnight everyone

During the twenty minutes, Jake gave me approximately twenty utterances. With 87 morphemes, Jake has a M.L.U. of 4.35. Jake would fall into the "Late Development of of the Basic Sentence" stage or Brown's Stage V. According to Brown's figures, Jake falls into a category in which he is advanced for his age, by at least a few months.

When looking at Jake's utterances, several things stand out. He uses contracted forms of the copula, "I'm tired" and "They're Dad's keys". He showed correct use of the regular past tense with "I finished my milk". When he asked questions he was able to invert the subject and verb without problems, "can I have some milk?".

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