Narrative Development
This early narrative type comprises unrelated statements grouped without clear sequence.
What is a "heap?"
This term describes small units of meaning added to words, like "s" in "cats" for plural.
What are "morphemes?"
The first pronoun type children generally acquire, such as “I” or “she,” is this type.
What is a "subjective pronoun?"
The pronoun placeholders “what” and “where” are among the first to be learned in this type of sentence.
What are WH-questions?"
This term describes adding a phrase within a clause or another clause within a clause, such as “The boy on the swing is my friend.”
What is "embedding?"
As children progress, their narratives start showing this type of connection, linking statements by a shared feature or characteristic.
What is "chaining?"
The mastery criterion for Brown’s morphemes is achieved when a child uses a morpheme with this accuracy percentage in required contexts.
What is 90%?
By Stage 5, children can typically use these pronouns to indicate ownership, as in “hers” or “his.”
What are "possessive pronouns?"
Early question forms in language development are often marked by this type of inflection, such as “Mommy go?”
What is "rising intonation?"
Stage 4 marks the introduction of these multi-part sentence structures, combining ideas with “and.”
What are "compound sentences?"
Children ages 3 to 5 typically use this sequence-based structure to tell stories with a simple timeline of events.
What is "primitive temporal organization?"
In Brown's stages, this is the stage when bound morphemes first begin to develop significantly.
When thinking about morphemes, what is Stage 2 development?
Pronouns like "myself" and "yourself" belong to this type and appear later in development.
What are "reflexive pronouns?"
This stage of development includes the first appearance of inverted question forms, such as “Where is daddy?”
In terms of question forms, what happens in Stage 3?
The sentence “That’s the game that I played” includes this type of clause in object position.
What is a "dependent clause?"
Narratives with this feature involve a cause-effect relationship, showing events that follow one another logically.
What is "causal sequencing?"
Brown observed children frequently overextending these, as seen in errors like “mans” instead of “men.”
What are "irregular plural forms?"
This stage marks the development of more consistent pronoun use, including “you” and “we.”
In terms of pronouns, what is Stage 3?
The "why" question begins as a single word in late Stage 2 but reaches full question inversion by these stages.
In terms of question development, what are Stages 4 and 5?
By Stage 5, children consistently use noun phrases with this structure, using a single modifier before the noun, like “big car.”
What are "one-element noun phrases?"
By the preschool years, children start using this type of narrative, where events are told with a logical order and emotional engagement.
What is a "focused chain?"
Mastery of morphemes in Brown's stages is typically achieved by the end of this developmental stage.
What is Stage 5?
Pronoun mastery generally concludes in this stage, including the appropriate use of subjective, objective, possessive, and reflexive forms.
In terms of pronouns, what is Stage 5?
By late Stage 4, children begin using adult-like questions that include these auxiliary verbs, creating more complex structures.
What are "inverted auxiliary verbs?"
Children begin combining sentences with complex constructions at this stage, often using relative clauses like “who” or “which.”
In terms of sentence construction, what happens in Stage 5?