Browsing by Author "Vuorinen, Oona"

Aims. In Finland there is only a limited amount of research on the development of the lexicon after toddler age. There is also a need for valid and comprehensive assessment tools for children. The assessment tools help for example in identifying the children who need support in their linguistic development or with reading and writing skills. This study is a part of a research project conducted in the University of Oulu (Kunnari & Välimaa, 2011). The aim of the project is to gather Finnish normative data to make the vocabulary tests valid for the use in Finnish. In the present study, the vocabulary skills of the school starters were investigated using Finnish versions of The Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test 4- and The Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test 4 (Martin & Brownell, 2011). The connections between the test results and different background variables were studied. The results were compared to earlier research data. Methods. The study subjects were Finnish speaking 1. and 2. grade pupils. In order to take part to the study it was required that the subjects were born full-term and that their overall development had been normal. 53 children from three schools in Helsinki participated in the study. There were 26 boys and 27 girls and the age varied between 7;0 and 9;0 years. The test results were inserted anonymously into a program (SPSS) for statistical analysis. Non-parametric methods were used for the data. Results and conclusions. 7;0–7;11 -year-old subjects had significantly smaller test scores in both tests than the 8;0–9;0 -year-old subjects. The standard deviation was greater in the receptive vocabulary test than in the expressive vocabulary test. There was a strong correlation between the scores of the two tests. In the younger age group the boys had greater scores in both tests than the girls. In the expressive vocabulary test the boys' results were significantly better. In the older age group the girls had greater scores in both tests, but the scores weren't significantly better than the boys'. None of the background factors (parental education level, family size, birth order, amount of ear infections) were connected to the scores in the vocabulary tests. Difficult and easy test words were mostly the same within both the girls and the boys, although there was a few interesting exceptions. The results of the study can be considered only indicative due to the small sample size. The comparations of the scores between the boys and the girls are not reliable partly because of the younger age of the girl subjects in this study.