Hashoul-Essa Lina, Armon-Lotem Sharon
Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2025 Mar 26;68(3S):1382-1401. doi: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00606. Epub 2024 Jun 20.
This study presents a comprehensive exploration of lexical and grammatical development in Palestinian Arabic (PA). The study aims to test the validity of the Palestinian Arabic Communicative Development Inventory (PA-CDI) as well as generate growth curves for lexical and morphosyntactic development, examine the order of emergence of both lexical and morphosyntactic categories, and explore the contribution of demographic and developmental factors to language development.
Data were collected from 1,399 parents of PA children aged 18-36 months using an online PA-CDI.
The results show that as age increased, so did lexical and morphosyntactic production, along with considerable variability across individuals. While lexical development in PA resembles the order observed in other languages with nouns preceding verbs and adjectives, morphosyntactic development indicates early emergence of verbal inflectional morphology prior to noun pluralization or negation. Age of word combination and health problems are predictive of lexical and morphosyntactic development, and so are parental concerns.
Our findings indicate the potential of the PA-CDI as an assessment tool for lexical and morphosyntactic development among PA-speaking children in Israel. Our developmental growth curves may also be used to identify children at risk for developmental language disorder, particularly those falling below the 10th percentile, thus allowing for early identification and early intervention. The use of background variables, specifically parental concerns, health issues, and word combinations, along with the PA-CDI, could potentially enhance the precision of language delay assessment.
本研究全面探讨了巴勒斯坦阿拉伯语（PA）的词汇和语法发展。该研究旨在检验巴勒斯坦阿拉伯语交流发展量表（PA-CDI）的有效性，并生成词汇和形态句法发展的增长曲线，研究词汇和形态句法类别的出现顺序，以及探讨人口统计学和发展因素对语言发展的贡献。
使用在线PA-CDI从1399名18至36个月大的PA儿童的父母那里收集数据。
结果表明，随着年龄的增长，词汇和形态句法的产出也随之增加，且个体间存在相当大的差异。虽然PA的词汇发展与其他语言中名词先于动词和形容词出现的顺序相似，但形态句法发展表明，动词屈折形态在名词复数化或否定之前就已早期出现。单词组合的年龄和健康问题可预测词汇和形态句法的发展，父母的担忧也有同样的作用。
我们的研究结果表明，PA-CDI有潜力作为以色列说PA儿童词汇和形态句法发展的评估工具。我们的发展增长曲线也可用于识别有发展性语言障碍风险的儿童，特别是那些低于第10百分位的儿童，从而实现早期识别和早期干预。将背景变量，特别是父母的担忧、健康问题和单词组合，与PA-CDI一起使用，可能会提高语言延迟评估的准确性。
