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Developmental and Gender Differences in the Production of the Past Tense in Spanish Children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2018

Alberto Domínguez ,
Cristina Izura  and
Ana Cecilia Medina
Alberto Domínguez*
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna (Spain)
Cristina Izura
Affiliation:
Swansea University (UK)
Ana Cecilia Medina
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alberto Domínguez. Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad de La Laguna. Campus de Guajara, La Laguna. 38200 Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study investigates gender differences in children’s linguistic development of Spanish past tense verbs. Two groups of 30 children, each consisting of 15 girls and 15 boys, were studied: Preschool children (5 years old) and 1st grade (7 years old). Participants carried out an elicitation task where a verbal change from present to past tense was required. Frequency and regularity variables were introduced as experimental factors to study differences between gender and age. The results showed that morphological rules were more successfully applied in 1st grade than in preschool children. Youngest participants showed a greatest influence of lexical variables, such as verb frequency and produced more omission and repetition errors. Gender differences only appeared in the oldest children, with girls being more affected by verb frequency and regularity. Girls also demonstrated a broader vocabulary than boys as shown by the qualitative analyses.

Keywords

childrenlexical frequencymorphological regularitysex differences
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 21 , 2018 , E13
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2018 

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Footnotes

We would like sincerely to thank all those who took part in the collection of data. We also thank Clive Tyrell for editing and reviewing this manuscript for English language. This study was supported by PSI2013-47959-P grant from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spanish government.

How to cite this article:

Domínguez, A., Izura, C., & Medina, A. C. (2018). Developmental and gender differences in the production of the past tense in Spanish children. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 21. e13. Doi:10.1017/sjp.2018.15

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