Using second grade children, this study was designed to investigate the differences (or lack of differences) among the Interview, the Picture Stimulus Interview, and the Free Play Situation techniques in the categories of productivity, thought groups, compound structures, complex structures, and words per thought group as a means of gaining a corpus of language for further study. A review of the research revealed that all three methods had been used but that no evidence existed for postulating the superiority of any one method. Subjects were divided into three groups, each exposed to a different method. Findings indicated significant differences existed among the three treatments although none existed between the Interview and the Picture Stimulus Interview. Furthermore, the research showed the Free Play Situation to be the weakest sampling technique. Consequently the following conclusions were drawn: (1) the recording of an interview is a better method than the recording of a free play situation for gaining a sample of children's language; (2) the inclusion or exclusion of picture stimuli will not make a difference in the subjects' speech; and (3) measuring the total number of words spoken by a subject in an interview will yield a good indication of that subject's performance on syntactic structures. (HS)