The objectives of the research reported here were (1) to develop and test the Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) technique, a method for quantifying the increasing use of syntactic and morphological structures in the spontaneous speech of children between the ages of three and seven, (2) to establish age norms for syntactic and morphological mastery against which the spontaneous speech of atypical children could be compared, (3) to evaluate a procedure for obtaining a reliable sample of children's spontaneous speech which could be easily used in a school or clinical setting, and (4) to provide information on the normal developmental order of grammatical structures, which could be a guideline for remedial training of children with language problems. The author feels that the DSS technique would be appropriate in establishing accurate baselines for research in language development and in comparing the relative effectiveness of various teaching methods. Its particular value is seen to lie in the fact that it, in contrast to other approaches, assesses the "end product" of language learning, the child's actual performance in verbal communication with the adult world. (Author/FWB)