Development of the Multilingual Sentence Repetition Task for Singapore: a preregistration protocol

Sentence repetition tasks are a common tool for assessing linguistic competence with regard to grammar development in young children, and are considered as potential behavioral markers for language impairment (e.g., Conti-Ramsden, Botting, & Faragher, 2001; Klem et al., 2015). While studies with second language learners also find the sentence repetition task to be sensitive to language impairments (e.g., Gutiérrez-Clellen, Restrepo, & Simón-Cereijido, 2006), more recent studies of bilingual children also show the task to discriminate children with such impairments (e.g., Armon-Lotem and Natalia Meir, 2016). The aim for the study described in this preregistered protocol is to investigate the psychometric properties of the Sentence repetition task for Singapore. This task includes four versions based on the four official languages of Singapore (English, Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Melayu ‘Malay’, and Tamil). English and Mandarin Chinese language versions are modelled after tasks previously developed by Dr. Susan Rickard-Liow and her research team at the National University of Singapore to investigate morpho-syntactic knowledge. New sentences were developed for Mandarin Chinese to match the structure of the English task. The Malay and Tamil items were newly developed for a larger scale project, in collaboration with external experts. While the Malay and Tamil versions, like the Chinese version, were developed to be similar and comparable to the English version in terms of sentence length (long, short) and type (canonical, non-canonical), more language specific morphological constructs were also included. As part of assessing children’s bilingual oral language skills, each child participant was administered the English language version, as well as the version in their assigned Mother Tongue language. External language experts (Dr. Hock Huan Goh; Dr. Mukhlis; Dr. Seetha Lakshmi) and current authors (N.T. Yussof, P. Vijayakumar, A. Arshad, Ng, S.C.) deemed the item appropriateness, errors and readability of the finalised items. The aim for this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the Sentence Repetition Task for Singapore as a standardized assessment tool for capturing the morpho-syntactical development in Singaporean children from preschool (Nursery, K1) to Primary school (P1-4). The assessment tool is developed for four languages (English plus ‘mother tongue’ languages (MT) of Chinese, Malay and Tamil). The intended use of the assessment is to measure proficiency in two languages: English and a MT.