engleski

Similarities and differences in mastering the first language: Comparing early and late talkers

Apart from delay in the onset of expressive vocabulary a certain number of late talkers can display long-term differences in comparison with their peers. The aim of this study was to explore similarities and differences between early and late talking children in the course of different phases of the language acquisition process. We wanted to see whether these differences can be described as a mere delay or if there exist substantial differences in the early lexical and/or morpho-syntactical development. Two subjects, one early and one late talking child who met the early and late talking criteria – to have productive vocabulary in the top and the bottom of 10th percentile, respectively - were longitudinally followed since the preverbal stage. The early talking child was followed till the age of 26 months and the late talker till the age of 30 months. Both were healthy second born from middle-class families. Communicative and linguistic skills were assessed by the MacArthur Communicative Devlopment Inventories filled by mothers on a weekly or fortnight basis. Periodically, an additional measure of comprehension - Reynell Developmental Language Scale was applied. All comparison was made with regard to comprehension and production. The results showed stable differences between the subjects during the year and a half of follow-up. Despite of being on the two opposite ends regarding language acquisition, the two children showed the greatest similarity in the domain of lexical composition with nouns predominating and a very small number of predicates and function words acquired before the noun lexical base was established. At the same time the subjects displayed numerous differences in relation to some non-verbal communicative parameters, rate and tempo of language acquisition and a degree of dissociation between receptive and expressive vocabulary. Results speak in favour of language processing differences. The possible role of phonological working memory limitations as the cause of delayed language development will be discussed.

language acquisition; late talker; early talker; vocabulary; lexical development; morpho-syntactical development

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