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Purpose: This study was designed primarily to determine if a critical-thinking task involving fables would elicit greater syntactic complexity than a conversational task in adolescents. Another purpose was to determine how well adolescents understand critical-thinking questions about fables.
Method: Forty adolescents (N = 20 boys and 20 girls; mean age = 14 years) with typical language development answered critical-thinking questions about the deeper meanings of fables. They also participated in a standard conversational task. The syntactic complexity of their responses during the speaking tasks was analyzed for mean length of communication unit (MLCU) and clausal density (CD).
Results: Both measures of syntactic complexity, MLCU and CD, were substantially greater during the critical-thinking task compared with the conversational task. It was also found that the adolescents understood the questions quite well, earning a mean accuracy score of 80%.
Conclusions: The critical-thinking task has potential for use as a new type of language-sampling tool to examine language production and comprehension in adolescents.
Syntax, the structural foundation of language, allows a speaker to arrange words within sentences to express thoughts, feelings, preferences, and observations in a clear, precise, and efficient manner. Although syntax emerges during the toddler years, studies have shown that it continues to develop throughout childhood, adolescence, and into early adulthood as sentences gradually become longer, contain more subordinate clauses, and evidence multiple levels of clausal embedding (e.g., Berman & Verhoeven, 2002; Hunt, 1970; Loban, 1976; Nippold, Hesketh, Duthie, & Mansfield, 2005; Nippold, Mansfield, & Billow, 2007; Verhoeven et al., 2002). Studies have also shown that when children, adolescents, and adults are engaged in narrative or expository speaking, they are more likely to employ long and complex utterances compared with when they are engaged in conversation (Dollaghan, Campbell, & Tomlin, 1990; Leadholm & Miller, 1992; MacLachlan & Chapman, 1988; Nippold, 2009; Nippold, Cramond, & Hayward-Mayhew, 2014; Nippold, Frantz-Kaspar, et al., 2014; Nippold et al., 2005; Wagner, Nettelbladt, Sahlén, & Nilholm, 2000). To explain these patterns, it has been argued that narrative and expository tasks typically involve greater amounts of cognitive stimulation by encouraging reflection on complex topics (e.g., human motives, peer conflicts, strategies for succeeding at a game or sport), prompting speakers to tap into their syntactic competence more fully to express their thoughts more...