Sampling Utterances and Grammatical Analysis Revised (SUGAR): Quantitative Values for Language Sample Analysis Measures in 7- to 11-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to document whether mean length of utterance SUGAR (MLU S ), total number of words (TNW), clauses per sentence (CPS), and/or words per sentence (WPS) demonstrated age-related changes in children with typically developing language, aged 7;0–10;11 (years;months). Method Participants were 132 typically developing children (aged 7;0–10;11), with a final sample size of 112 participants (57 boys and 55 girls). Fifty utterance conversational language samples were collected using a language sampling protocol. Four language sample analysis metrics (i.e., MLU S , TNW, CPS, and WPS) were calculated from the samples. Results Results indicated statistically significant age-related increases in three (MLU S , TNW, and WPS) of the four metrics. Conclusions MLU S , TNW, CPS, and WPS may be used with other assessment data to document age-related language changes in children aged 7;0–10;11. When combined with previous data from younger (aged 3;0–7;11) children (Pavelko & Owens, 2017), the data suggest that these metrics offer a set of measures that can be used to assess children's conversational language skills from preschool through late elementary school.