Morphological Markers! What fun!

I love teaching children various morphological markers that may be missing in their spontaneous speech because you can truly see a difference not only in utterance length but in utterance complexity! So how do you facilitate production of various morphological markers? In this entry I will give you various ideas in the form of activities and games!

Verb+ing!  Most of are kiddos need this one! In my experience this morphological marker should not be a goal for a child who is still at the semantic attribute phase or 2-word phase. They are still acquiring various verbs and need to increase their repertoire before moving on to adding the -ing marker. I still model verb+ing constantly and if they repeat it well then that's great too!  I usually do a hybrid approach and use both action picture cards as well as modeling while actually performing the actions.

Plural-s! My absolute fave! I introduce it by showing the children a single object and then adding a "friend". I explain that if they want to talk about both objects that the snake sound ("s") is needed! Memory is a great game to target this goal! I usually introduce about 5 pairs then I turn them over and we play. When they find a pair, I ask them what they found. Most usually leave off the snake sound at first but I quickly model and remind them of the rule! I have seen great results!

Possessive -s! Another favorite! I introduce this topic by first talking about things that belong to me and the patient while modeling possessive -s use. I usually give scenarios and say "If I lost my jacket and you found it, you would say "hey that's Misa's jacket!", or if I found your shoes I would say "hey those are John's shoes!". I explain that that snake sound on names is needed so we know it belongs to them! I have various pictures with people and animals that I use to elicit the possessive -s morphological marker. For example, see the picture below. I would prompt the child with the following, "these eggs belong to the chicken so they are the _____". Hopefully they respond with "chicken's eggs" if not model and review the rule!

These next morphological markers are usually targets for my older patients (4-6 years old). I have been confused lately on uncontractible vs contractible auxiliary/copula so I will try to assist you as well! I follow developmental guidelines closely, so I will talk about the ones that develops first according to Brown's 14 grammatical morphemes.

Uncontractible Copula ("to be" is the main verb)

Elicit this by asking questions about who is in a particular location or a who is in a particular state.

Who is in bed? She is.

Who is at the park? They are.

Who is sick? She is.

Who is happy? They are.


The uncontractible copula is used more in real life conversations. We normally don't say, "She is in the bed", in response to a question. That full response would then be considered a contractible copula because we could also say, "She's in the bed". Notice "is" is the main verb thus it is considered a copula and NOT an auxiliary!

The uncontractible auxiliary (aka helping verb)

Elicit this by asking questions about who is performing a particular action or wearing a particular item. 

Who is sleeping? She is. 

Who is playing? They are.

Who is wearing pajamas? She is. 

Who is wearing shorts? They are. 

If you require a full response then it would be a contractible auxiliary. For example, "She's sleeping" or "They're playing". Notice the "is" and "are" are NOT the main verb and are helping in both sentences. 

So as a quick reminder the short response is the uncontractible form while the longer response is the contractible form! 

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse you more! I know I had to use trial and error at first when trying to elicit the various morphological markers! The chart below can also be used as a cheat sheet! Write the way to elicit beside as a quick reminder!