Elicited imitation paradigm

[Ana Pérez-Leroux]

To add to Brian's & Nan's

You are likely to encounter some resistance on the part of reviewers, who at times seem oblivious to the debunking of the myth. The method can be used for adults (more in a shadowing format). Several standardized tests employ it for older children (CELF, for instance).  But the complexity, length in words and speed of the target to repeat has to be calibrated for your age group or population: hard enough that it taxes them, but not too hard they are simply silent.  We found it very useful to elicit word order preferences with bilingual children up to the age of 8. Number of words successfully repeated proved to be a very good measure of the bilingual  child overall fluency. There is an excellent chapter in the McDaniels & McKee volume.

Pérez-Leroux, A. T., A. Cuza and D. Thomas. 2011.  Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14 (1), 221-232.

Lust, B., Flynn, S., & Foley, C. (1996). What children know about what they say: Elicited imitation as a research method for assessing children’s syntax. In D. McDaniel, C. McKee & H. Smith Cairns (eds.), Methods for assessing children’s syntax, pp. 55–76. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 


On 2013-03-08, at 12:31 PM, Liam Blything wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> Can anyone give me some advice on what age-groups are too old for an elicited imitation paradigm? I have read that 4 years old is quite an old age to use this paradigm, but other studies have used it up to 7 years old.
> 
> I am eliciting two clause sentences linked by a connective (before, after). When do children become at high-risk for simply 'parrotting' the target sentence?
> 
> Many thanks for any thoughts,
> 
> Liam Blything
> Lancaster University PhD student.
> 
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