Wug Test - Jean Berko Gleason (1958)

    Cards (6)

    • The researcher shows a child cards with drawings of imaginary animals, and teaches the child a nonsense name for the animal.
    • The researcher says, "This is a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two wugs."
    • Very young children are baffled by the question and are unable to answer correctly, sometimes responding with "two wug".
    • Children aged 4-5 test best in dealing with the voiced alveolar fricative /z/ after a voiced consonant; they do almost as well with the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/.
    • The Wug Test also includes questions that explore a child's understanding of verb inflections and the possession.
    • Additional items were designed to investigate children's ability to handle common derivational bound morphemes such as the agentive -er. (a man who works = worker)