Gatt Daniela, Camilleri Liberato, Grech Chloe
Department of Communication Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta, Msida, Malta.
Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Faculty of Science, University of Malta, Msida, Malta.
Front Psychol. 2023 Aug 3;14:1214518. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1214518. eCollection 2023.
Although parental checklists are well-known for their potential in indexing young children's lexicon size, they can also be used to track children's acquisition of individual words. Word-level data can be used to identify the checklist words most and least commonly employed across groups of children. Like parent-completed vocabulary checklists, samples of spontaneous language use collected from multiple children can also generate measures of word commonality, concerned with the numbers of children producing individual words. To our knowledge, comparisons of word usage as determined by parental checklist and language sample data obtained in parallel from the same children have not been carried out. Also scarce in the empirical literature are item-level analyses of early bilingual lexicons that explore word usage across two emerging languages. The present study aimed to contribute toward bridging both gaps through the analysis of data generated by a bilingual Maltese-English adaptation of the vocabulary checklist of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences (CDI: WS) and spontaneous language samples for the same children. An additional objective was to derive implications for revising the current version of the vocabulary checklist, in preparation for its eventual standardization.
For 44 Maltese children aged 12, 18, 24, and 30 months, the words reported by their main caregivers on the vocabulary checklist were identified, along with their respective semantic categories. For the same children, 20-min language samples obtained during free play with the caregiver were transcribed orthographically. Words identified through parental report and language sampling were analyzed for commonality, i.e., the number of children producing each word.
Comparison of the word usage patterns obtained through both methods indicated differences in the words most commonly sampled and those most commonly reported, particularly in relation to grammatical categories. Notwithstanding these differences, positive and significant correlations emerged when considering all grammatical categories and languages across commonality levels.
The commonality scores based on parental checklist data have implications for reconsidering the length and language balance of the Maltese-English adaptation of the CDI: WS vocabulary checklist. Sampled word usage patterns can contribute additional objectivity in updating the reporting instrument in preparation for its eventual standardization.
尽管家长填写的词汇清单以其在衡量幼儿词汇量方面的潜力而闻名，但它们也可用于追踪儿童对单个单词的习得情况。单词层面的数据可用于确定不同儿童群体中使用最多和最少的清单单词。与家长完成的词汇清单一样，从多个儿童那里收集的自然语言使用样本也能生成单词通用性的度量指标，该指标关注说出单个单词的儿童数量。据我们所知，尚未对通过家长词汇清单确定的单词用法与从同一儿童那里并行获取的语言样本数据进行比较。实证文献中也很少有对早期双语词汇进行项目层面分析的研究，这类分析旨在探究两种新兴语言中的单词用法。本研究旨在通过分析由《麦克阿瑟交流发展量表：单词和句子》（CDI: WS）的马耳他语 - 英语双语改编版词汇清单以及同一儿童的自然语言样本所生成的数据，来填补这两个空白。另一个目标是为修订当前版本的词汇清单得出相关结论，为其最终标准化做准备。
对于年龄在12、18、24和30个月的44名马耳他儿童，确定其主要照顾者在词汇清单上报告的单词及其各自的语义类别。对于同一批儿童，对他们与照顾者自由玩耍期间获取的20分钟语言样本进行正字法转录。对通过家长报告和语言抽样确定的单词进行通用性分析，即说出每个单词的儿童数量。
通过两种方法获得的单词使用模式比较表明，最常抽样的单词和最常报告的单词存在差异，尤其是在语法类别方面。尽管存在这些差异，但在考虑所有语法类别和语言的通用性水平时，出现了显著的正相关。
基于家长词汇清单数据的通用性得分对于重新考虑CDI: WS词汇清单的马耳他语 - 英语改编版的长度和语言平衡具有启示意义。抽样的单词使用模式可为更新报告工具提供额外的客观性，为其最终标准化做准备。
