Logopedics, Vol. 7 No. 2, 2017.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31299/log.7.2.1
Comprehension of syntactic structures in adulthood – data from the TROG-2:HR test
Ana Matić
orcid.org/0000-0003-3699-2067
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Edukacijsko-rehabilitacijski fakultet, Odsjek za logopediju
Jelena Kuvač Kraljević
orcid.org/0000-0003-1452-0851
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Edukacijsko-rehabilitacijski fakultet, Odsjek za logopediju
Abstract
Ageing is a complex process characterised by numerous changes like sensory deficits, reduced working memory capacity, slowing of general perceptive and cognitive abilities and changes in language processing. As syntactic processing in adulthood is an understudied field in Croatian language, the main goal of this paper was to examine the comprehension of syntactic structures in adult age. For the purpose of this study TROG-2:HR Test for the reception of grammar (TROG-2:HR; Bishop, Kuvač Kraljević et al., 2014) has been used. The research aimed at inspecting the correlation between age and comprehension of different syntactic structures. Moreover, the goal was to observe the differences between three groups of adult participants, with the assumption that the differences will be manifested for complex structures only, with youngest participants outperforming the rest. There were 69 people in the younger group of participants (aged 18 to 39), 58 in the middle group (aged 40 to 64), and 32 in the older group (aged 65 to 87).
The results indicate there is a significant correlation between age and 11 syntactic structures, some of which are also simple, which is contradictory to what was initially expected. This means that not only complex structures are susceptible to change with age. Also, between-group differences were observed in the comprehension of three complex and one simple structure, but only between younger and older and middle and older group.
Overall findings are in line with prevailing studies which support the account that the ability of understanding complex syntactic structures declines with age.
Keywords
ageing; language comprehension; TROG-2:HR Test for the reception of grammar; simple and complex syntactic structures
Hrčak ID:
192528
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2017.
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