Browsing by Subject "kaksikielisyys"

Objectives. Assessment of language development and differential diagnosis between typical bilingual language development and developmental language disorders in bilingual children is difficult due to lack of appropriate diagnostic tools and norms. Dynamic assessment has been proposed as a complementary method in which learning potential is assessed instead of current language skills. Graduated prompting as dynamic assessment method involves helping children with the tasks by presenting graduated prompts. The aim of the study was to add information about the dynamic assessment of language skills in preschool-age children acquiring Finnish as their second language and its applicability in the differential diagnosis. Methods. A dynamic assessment method was translated and adapted into Finnish and piloted with eight bilingual children aged between 4 to 6 years whose home language was not Finnish, Swedish or Sami language. Half of the children were typically developing bilinguals and half were bilinguals with diagnosed or suspected developmental language impairment. Children's language skills and learning of receptive and expressive vocabulary as well as sentence production were assessed. Test scores were analyzed quantitatively and compared between groups and matched pairs. The usefulness of the prompts was analyzed qualitatively. In addition, the usability and the suitability of the method for the assessment of bilingual children were examined. Results and conclusions. The typically developing children scored slightly higher in the dynamic measures of vocabulary. In the static pre- or post measures of vocabulary or in the measures of sentence production no such difference was found. The results of the vocabulary assessment were in line with previous studies stating dynamic assessment having potential as a differential diagnostic tool. Score differences were minor and the sample was small, thus the results cannot be generalized. The assessment method is short enough to be carried out in single assessment session but complicated to use and rate. The used tasks need be improved further. However, new dynamic assessment methods in Finnish can be developed based on the information gathered in the study.

Aims. This study examines the expressions of 4–5 year old bilingual (Russian-Finnish) children with and without developmental language disorder and the aim is to examine, how the morphosyntactic repertoires of these children differ from each other, what type of morphosyntactic changes are observable in these expressions and is it possible to track traces that illustrate the effect of crosslinguistic transfer of Russian language on the morphosyntax of Finnish language. Examining the language development of bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder is important, because more information about the linguistic features that indicate developmental language disorder is needed. This study is one of the first studies in Finland that examines the morphosyntax in the Finnish-language expressions of bilingual children, whose first language is a minority language. This study is part of the PAULA-project, which examines the effects of a small group intervention targeted to children with refugee and foreign backgrounds. Methods. The material of this study consists of video footage from the PAULA-project’s language assessment situations. The children’s skills were assessed with the Finnish Test of Phonology, the Reynell Developmental Language Scales (test of receptive speech) and The Cat Story 3 picture sequencing narrative task and in three short play situations. The expressions of four typically developing bilingual 4–5-year-old children and three 4-year-olds with developmental language disorder were transcribed from the video footage. The language samples were analyzed with the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn). Verb and noun inflection were also examined with qualitative methods. Results and conclusions. The morphosyntactic repertoires of case markers in the typically developing children’s nominal phrases turned out to be more extensive than the repertoire of the children with developmental language disorder. Use of adverbials in verb phrases indicated that the typically developing children were able to produce more complex phrases than children with developmental language disorder. In this study, the morphosyntactic features that seem to indicate developmental language disorder in the Finnish-language expressions were inappropriate use of case markers or the complete lack of case markers in noun phrases, frequent errors in subject-verb agreement, and ungrammatical word formation. Effects of crosslinguistic transfer were identified in the use of negatition, past tense and code-switching.

Aim. The purpose of this study was to examine cross-language relationships between receptive and expressive vocabulary in first and second language. Previous studies have reported various cross-linguistic relationships ranging from positive correlations to non-significant and negative correlations. In addition, this study investigates how various factors are related to receptive and expressive vocabulary in L1 and L2. Also, the correlations were studied between children’s vocabularies and the questionnaire filled by parents and kindergarten teachers. Method. The receptive and expressive vocabularies were measured in first and second languages. The children who participated (N=21) were between 4 and 6 years old. The participants spoke Arabic or Russian as their first language and had attended Finnish kindergarten. The assessment of first language was performed in co-operation with an interpreter. Parents also assessed children’s linguistic proficiency in L1 and kindergarten teachers in L2 by filling questionnaires. The sample was analysed by using statistical methods including correlation analysis and linear regression. Results and conclusions. While examining the whole group there were no significant correlations between languages. In the Russian speaking group, there was found a significant positive correlation between L1 and L2 in receptive vocabulary. In the Arabic speaking group, the cross-language relationships were negative both in receptive and expressive vocabulary. The expressive vocabulary in L2 was associated to L2-language exposure, length of participation in Finnish kindergarten and father’s education. However, the only statistically significant predicting variable was the amount of L2 exposure. Parental ratings correlated with children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary in L1. In L2, the ratings scored by kindergarten teachers correlated with expressive vocabulary but not with receptive vocabulary. The findings of conflicting associations were similar in previous studies about cross-language relationships in vocabularies. Further research is needed to draw more reliable conclusions