ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE SENT Or riCsAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE USE OF PICTURES AND OBJECTS IN ASSESSING CHILDREN'S RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE LANGUAGE

The problem of study dealt with two aspects of children's language knowledge and Children's uses of pictures and objects when demonstrating . 4 their language skills. Forty-eight 4-and 5-year-olds wee, randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups, matched for SES, sex, and age. Subjects were individually tested with one of the four measures: language comprehension using objeCt stimuli; comprehension with picture stimuli; language production using object stimuli; or production with picture stimuli. Main effects for stimulus medium and response mode were both significant, as well as the interaction. The discussion is oriented toward the developmental controversy around receptive and productive language skills and the impact of the representational medium upon performance in assessment tasks.