Vocabulary development in Greek children: a cross-linguistic comparison using the Language Development Survey*

Abstract

This study investigated vocabulary size and vocabulary composition in Greek children aged 1 ; 6 to 2 ; 11 using a Greek adaptation of Rescorla's Language Development Survey (LDS; Rescorla, 1989). Participants were 273 toddlers coming from monolingual Greek-speaking families. Greek LDS data were compared with US LDS data obtained from the instrument's normative sample (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000). Vocabulary size increased markedly with age, but Greek toddlers appeared to get off to a slower start in early word learning than US children. The correlation between percentage word use scores in Greek and US samples was moderate in size, indicating considerable overlap but some differences. Common nouns were the largest category among the fifty most frequent words in both samples. Numbers of adjectives and verbs were comparable across languages, but people and closed-class words were more numerous in the Greek sample. Finally, Greek late talkers showed similar patterns of vocabulary composition to those observed in typically developing Greek children.

Lexical composition in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

“…These similarities include that expressive vocabulary growth starts slowly at about age 1 ;0 and then accelerates from 1;6 to 2;0; that early vocabularies are composed of words from a variety of word classes, with nouns generally the largest class; and that early words often show overextensions in reference. Starting in the 1980s, studies using vocabulary checklists such as the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (CDI ; Fenson, Dale, Reznick, Bates, Thal, & Pethick, 1994) and the Language Development Survey (Rescorla, 1989) have revealed many cross-linguistic similarities in lexical acquisition (Dale & Goodman, 2005 ;Papaeliou & Rescorla, 2011). For example, children within each country vary widely in their rate of lexical acquisition, acquisition accelerates from age 1;0 to 2;0, girls tend to have larger reported vocabularies than boys, and there are similarities in vocabulary composition across languages.…”

Investigating Use of a Parent Report Tool to Measure Vocabulary Development in Deaf Greek-speaking Children with Cochlear Implants

“…Indeed, in the Papaeliou & Rescorla (2011) study, it was shown that Greek-speaking children at ages younger than 24 months develop smaller-sized lexicons as compared to English-speaking ones.…”

“…A cross-linguistic study of vocabulary development in Greek and English by Papaeliou and Rescorla (2011) was the first study to provide measures of expressive vocabulary for a large sample of monolingual Greek-speaking toddlers. The investigators obtained data for 273 Greek-speaking toddlers aged 1;6 to 2;11 using a Greek adaptation of Rescorla's Language Development Survey (LDS: Rescorla, 1989), which is not commercially available.…”

A Cypriot Greek Adaptation of the CDI: Early Production of Translation Equivalents in a Bi-(dia)lectal Context

“…First, although several language milestones have been established and cdi norms have been standardized in many languages, the modal child has turned out to be a myth ical creature in the study of language development as Fenson et al (1994) sug gest. Children follow their own course in development showing large varia tion, especially in the production of language in the first years of life (Huttenlocher 1998;Pearson et al 1993), within the same and across different countries (Papaeliou & Rescorla 2011). Second, different reporters (mothers, fathers, care givers, etc.)…”