Response coincidence analysis as evidence for language acquisition strategies

Abstract

New analytical techniques were developed for the identification of subject groups based on within-subject patterns of cooccurrences of responses. These “response coincidence analyses” provided an empirical basis for conjectures about stages or strategies in terms of the rules which characterize group performances. The nature of the operative rules was inferred from an analysis of item response similarities within the subject groups. These techniques were applied to a data set originally obtained by Innes (1974) from 120 children (20 at each age from 2 to 7 years), for a study of the acquisition of the English inflectional morphology for pluralization. The results show quite clearly how the pluralization system is acquired and indicate how such data can be used to develop the specification of rules sensitive to psycholinguistic evidence.