Graduation Year
2015
Graduation Month
May
Document Type
Professional Paper - Campus Access Only
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Major
Communicative Sciences and Disorders
Faculty Mentor
Ginger Collins
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to create a database of written language samples with the intent of describing the nature of students’ written persuasive discourse and providing local normative data for typically developing seventh-graders. Language sample analysis is considered a best practice in clinical analysis of young children’s language skills. Standardized assessment tools are used to determine the presence or absence of a language disorder, whereas language sample analyses are useful for determining how an individual communicates in an authentic setting. Language sample analysis is under-utilized when assessing older students, since few language norms for this age group have been established. This study will contribute to the gap in the literature regarding adolescent language norms. Written language samples will be collected from seventh-grade students in the Missoula area. All students will be prompted to write a persuasive essay on a common topic, and written samples will be analyzed for syntactic complexity, vocabulary complexity, and coherence. Results will be analyzed for common themes along demographic data (gender, age, ethnicity, SES, etc.). When assessing written discourse samples of adolescents with language disorders, this repository of language samples may be useful for comparison.
Honors College Research Project
Yes
Recommended Citation
Fink, Sarah, "Written Language Sampling in Seventh-Grade Students" (2015). Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts. 41.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/utpp/41
© Copyright 2015 Sarah Fink