Lexical Responses to Subject Pronoun Priming: Assessment Considerations for Preschoolers with Inconsistent Case Marking

Abstract

Preschoolers with developmental language disorder may substitute object case pronouns in the subject position of sentences. This study explored whether pronoun case accuracy in spontaneous language samples was associated with the provision of personal pronouns in probes that use structural priming. Seventeen Head Start preschoolers participated. Two categorical measures were calculated based on the absence of spontaneous case errors in 15-min language samples and the presence of personal pronouns in responses to formal priming items on a standardized assessment. Children who produced spontaneous pronoun case errors were less likely to respond to priming with he, she, him, or her in subject position, instead producing lexical noun phrases such as “the boy.” A prerequisite knowledge of English’s case system may be needed for uptake of structural priming in standardized assessments. Preschoolers with immature pronoun case knowledge may not exhibit pronoun case errors during structured formal tasks that rely on priming cues.