Expression of possession in children (TLD and SLI) at age of 3 to 6

In Croatian possession may be expressed by possessive adjective, possessive pronoun, possessive genitive and possessive dative. This paper analyses ways of expressing possession in children, the frequency in the use of possessive adjectives in children with specific language impairment (SLI) in comparison to children with typical language development (TLD) with regard to the gender of the possessor in the use of possessive adjectives and the types of possessive relations. In this research 30 children, aged 3 to 6 years were examined: 15 children with SLI and 15 children with TLD as a control group. Each group of participants was divided into three subgroups: children from 3-4 years, 4-5 years and 5-6 years. The tests were prepared specifically for this research: 8 black and white drawings representing examples of the animate possessors. Frequent nouns in all three genders representing the possession were attached to each possessor. The results showed that children with SLI used twice as many different means of expressing possession than children with TLD. Although the children in both groups rarely used possessive adjectives as the means for expressing possession, children with SLI used more possessive adjectives in expressing possession than children with TLD. However, the former made more mistakes, such as gender discord, formation of possessive adjectives with non-possessive suffix, formation of possessive adjectives for inanimate nouns, etc., while the latter produced more correct possessive adjectives. In both groups the most common mean for expressing possession for an animate possessor was preposition od followed by genitive od+gen. Its frequency was similar in all three age groups for children with TLD, whilst for children with SLI it increased with age. Children with SLI from ages 5-6 expressed possession similar to younger children with TLD, which suggests a delay in language development. It seems that children express possession with od+gen as there are minimal phoneme changes in such formation, independent of gender and type of possessive relationship. Besides morphological simplicity, the higher frequency of od+gen in adult speakers can also be cause for the prevalence of od+gen in the expression of possession of children aged 3-6.