Use of Brown's 14 Grammatical Morphemes by Bilingual Hispanic Preschoolers

Abstract

This pilot study investigated Standard American English (SAE) morphological development for 15 bilingual Hispanic preschoolers who were attending a bilingual day care center. Participants included nine girls and six boys between the ages of 2.6 years and 5.0 years (mean age = 3.8 years). Thirty-minute spontaneous language samples were obtained, yielding 100 utterances for mean length of utterance (MLU) and morphological analysis according to Miller's (1981) criteria. Analysis of the data revealed emergent use of Brown's (1973) 14 grammatical morphemes, although mastery generally was not seen at the same ages as those expected for SAE speakers. Clinicians should exercise caution when applying SAE normative data to bilingual Spanish-speaking children.