Pre- and post-intervention tests
A series of tests were devised for the research in order to
have specific measures of the treatment goals: Grammar
Screening Test, Articulation Screening Test and Grammar
Elicitation Test. The grammatical items possessive
‘s’, past tense ‘ed’ and the subject pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’
were identified as potential treatment targets for these
5-year-olds and were therefore included in the tests. For
each testing session, children were shown a series of pictures.
For each picture, the child was asked a question
designed to elicit a specific grammatical structure. Vocabulary
items used in tests were not used in treatment
activities.
The purpose of the Grammar Screening Test was to
identify potential treatment targets for each child. The
test consisted of six possessive ‘s’, six past tense and four
subject pronouns (two ‘he’, two ‘she’). For each of the
possessive and past tense, two items were included for
each allomorph ([s], [z] and [əz]; [t], [d] and [əd]).
The purpose of the Articulation Screening Test was
to establish if the children had the articulation skills to
produce the targeted grammatical goals.