title: Sample size for measuring grammaticality in preschool children from picture-elicited language samples.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a shorter language sample elicited with fewer pictures (i.e., 7) would yield a percent grammatical utterances (PGU) score similar to that computed from a longer language sample elicited with 15 pictures for 3-year-old children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Language samples were elicited by asking forty 3-year-old children with varying language skills to talk about pictures in response to prompts. PGU scores were computed for each of two 7-picture sets and for the full set of 15 pictures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PGU scores for the two 7-picture sets did not differ significantly from, and were highly correlated with, PGU scores for the full set and with each other. Agreement for making pass-fail decisions between each 7-picture set and the full set and between the two 7-picture sets ranged from 80% to 100%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current study suggests that the PGU measure is robust enough that it can be computed on the basis of 7, at least in 3-year-old children whose language samples were elicited using similar procedures.
authors.forename: Sarita L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Eisenberg
authors.forename: Ling-Yu
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Guo
mesh_terms: D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D018401:Sample Size