Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T07:52:00.895Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Children's production and comprehension of questions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Dorothy Tyack
Affiliation:
Scottish Rite Institute for Childhood Aphasia, San Francisco
David Ingram
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia

Abstract

This study examined children's production and comprehension of questions, with the aim of discovering possible patterns in question acquisition. For the production study, questions were collected from 22 children aged 2; 0–3; 11. The data show a high frequency of yes-no, what, and where questions by age 2; 0. Why and how questions were infrequent but they increased with age. Who and when questions were rarely asked by children of any age. From the frequency data a rough chronological order of acquisition was inferred: what, where, why, how, when. In the comprehension study 100 children were tested, aged 3; 0–5; 5. The test controlled syntax and vocabulary and varied specific wh- question-words. The frequency of correct answers increased with the age of the children. When children made mistakes, their answers were not random but appeared to be following certain question-answering strategies. These included attention to semantic features of verbs and especially the placement of verbs in the sentence.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported in large part by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke Grant NS 07514.

References

REFERENCES

Brown, R. (1968). The development of wh-questions in child speech. JVLVB 7. 279–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cazden, C. (1970). Children's questions: their forms, functions, and roles in education. Young Children, March, 202–20.Google Scholar
Davis, E. (1932). The form and function of children's questions. ChDev 3. 5774.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1970). Discourse agreement: how children answer questions. In Hayes, J. (ed.), Cognition and the development of language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ingram, D. & Tyack, D. (1973). The inversion of subject NP and Aux in children's questions. Paper presented at LSA meeting,San Diego.Google Scholar