The Comprehension of Active and Passive Sentences in Persian Typically Developing Children Aged 48-71 Months

The passive sentence structure is one of the most interesting syntactic structures on language development. Studies in some languages have indicated that comprehension of this syntactic structure takes place late in the language acquisition process. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the comprehension of active and passive structures in 48-59- and 60-71-month-old Persian-speaking children.
Material and 100 children aged 48-71 months (38 children aged 48-59 months and 62 children aged 60-71 months) participated in this study from seven different kindergartens and three preschools. Five active sentences and four passive sentences were uttered, and the children were asked to look at one of the four pictures in front of them and choose the correct one. After recording the replies, comprehension scores were compared between both age groups and both gender using independent t-test. In the end, the percentages of correct and wrong answers were analyzed.
There was a significant difference between the comprehension of active sentences by the children in both age groups (P 0.050). Furthermore, there were no significant differences between the two genders in comprehension of active or passive sentences.
Based on the findings of this study, it appears that Persian-speaking children aged 48-71 months have a better comprehension of active sentences compared to passive sentences. Furthermore, despite the improvement in the comprehension of active sentences from 48 months to 71 months, no noticeable change occurred in the comprehension of passive structures.