Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the crosslinguistic validity of the Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Test (CL-NWR) based on a large multicountry sample by investigating factors related to language ability, as well as potential confounds. Method: The data consisted of CL-NWR scores from children aged 37-165 months, collected by 18 research teams across 15 countries. Item-level analysis was employed to examine any nondesirable effects of gender, socioeconomic status, bilingual status, and the amount of exposure to the test language, as well as desirable effects of age, item length, and clinical status (children categorized as typically developing [TD], with developmental language disorder [DLD], or with reported language concerns [LC], respectively). Subsamples were used to evaluate the consistency of findings across three time points and between different versions of the CL-NWR. Results: Bayesian analysis provided strong evidence for the effects of age, item length, and clinical status on CL-NWR performance, as well as consistency across time points. In contrast, there was weak or no evidence for the effects of gender, socioeconomic status, bilingual status, amount of exposure, or test version. Additionally, there were two interactions between (a) item length and clinical status, suggesting that children with DLD found longer nonwords disproportionately more challenging than TD children, and (b) age and clinical status, with the gap between TD and LC groups narrowing with age. Conclusions: The CL-NWR was unaffected by environmental and demographic factors that often influence language assessments, including some nonword repetition tests. Performance was driven by factors reflecting language abilities. This makes the CL-NWR a unique and valuable tool for language assessment contributing to the identification of DLD in diverse linguistic, social, and geographical contexts.

This study investigated associations between socioeconomic status (SES), input quality, and bilingual lexical skills of children raised in Maltese-dominant homes. Children aged 3;04–3;08 ( N = 38) and their primary caregivers were categorised as low, medium, or high SES. Children’s lexical skills were assessed through receptive picture name judgement and picture naming, in Maltese and English. Input quality was measured through type counts sampled during caregiver–child play at home. SES influenced children’s English lexical performance, but not Maltese. Aggregated types (Maltese and English) fully mediated SES effects on English picture naming. Maltese types were positively associated with English naming and receptive judgement, suggesting cross-language effects. Further, Maltese and English types had language-specific effects on the respective naming tasks. English type counts, indexing caregiver language mixing, affected Maltese naming negatively. Results support the use of lexically diverse Maltese input in Maltese-dominant homes, complemented by judicious use of English input.

Aims and objectives: Early bilingual language assessment often focuses on lexical development. However, lexical tasks per se are not sufficiently informative of the child's bilingual language development. Thus, other developmental communicative-language domains should be analysed within plurilingual language assessment.Methodology: Drawing on parent-report instruments currently used with plurilingual children, we developed a web-based questionnaire to complement early language assessment in children exposed to more than one language. The instrument not only asks parents about family language use and exposure but also taps into parental socio-conversational skills (SCS) skills and daily playing activities and routines with their child, as important features of the home language learning environment.Data and analysis: We conducted a feasibility study of our questionnaire on the parents of 30 plurilingual Italian-speaking toddlers (18 males; mean age = 28.73 months). Feasibility and acceptability have been measured through satisfaction rating scales reported by parents after they filled in our questionnaire, together with internal validity analyses.Findings: Out of 30 participants, 27 did not report any concerns regarding our questionnaire. We obtained scores of 8.55/10 (SD = 1.97; Mdn = 9) to estimate the degree of comprehension of the questions; 8.53/10 (SD = 1.76; Mdn = 9) for the degree of coherence and logic of the sequence of questions. Internal validity identified target domains, for example, parental SCS, exposure to digital device and age of first exposure to languages, with excellent internal consistency for parental SCS. Correlations revealed associations between items (e.g., parental responsiveness before and after their child's first words onset; rho = 0.406, p = .029) targeting the same concept (e.g., parental responsiveness).Originality: We developed and tested the first web-based parent-report questionnaire for evaluating the language environments of plurilingual Italian-speaking children (including parental SCS and input quality).Implications: The results provide preliminary evidence and suggestions about how to use and further develop our questionnaire across plurilingual populations, considering the heterogeneity in language exposure of plurilingual.

center dot Little is known about the expressive vocabularies of young children with bilingual language difficulties. The present study investigated the individual variability present in the expressive vocabulary skills of 3-year-olds with language difficulties, raised in a bilingual context where Mal-tese and English are spoken nationwide and hold majority status. Ten Maltese children aged 36-45 months, who had been diagnosed with language difficulties in the absence of significant biomedical conditions, participated in this study. A sample of younger typically-developing Maltese children was matched to the clinical group for vocabulary size. All children received predominantly Maltese language exposure in their daily settings. Central tendencies and range of variation in vocabulary production were measured through a bilingual vocabulary checklist completed by the parents. Re-ported vocabulary measures were compared to words elicited from the children on a non-standardized picture naming task. Group-and individual-level analyses revealed substantial variability in participants' vocabulary size. In contrast with measures for the typically-developing group, picture naming and checklist scores for the children with language difficulties were non-commensurate, in-dicating inaccuracies in parental reporting. Validation of parent-completed vocabulary checklists on typically-developing children does not necessarily imply similar levels of accuracy when employed with clinical populations. In monolingual and bilingual children with language difficulties whose input language/s lack normative data, multiple vocabulary measures that include direct assessment are called for, to minimize reporting bias.

AbstractDevelopmental Language Disorders (DLDs) affects a significant number of children during early childhood. Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs) are vital in providing the adequate treatment through Speech and Language Therapeutic Toys (SALTTs) including board games, which have substantial benefits for children undergoing therapy. However, designers require support in designing board games which specifically target child therapy. A framework is proposed to assist designers in designing more efficient, inclusive and usable games which in turn are aligned with therapy goals defined by SLPs.

BackgroundAlthough 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. Materials and methodsFor 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. ResultsComparison 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. DiscussionThe 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.

This paper describes the process of adapting the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) to Maltese. The language-learning context in Malta is introduced, followed by an overview of the main typological characteristics of Maltese. A detailed account of the adaptation process is then given. Theoretical and clinical applications of the Maltese adaptation of the MAIN are discussed and current research projects in which the Maltese adaptation is being employed are briefly described.

An effort to solve real-world problems through the creation of new or improved products, such as rehabilitation or therapeutic devices, requires a humancentred design approach.Lack of domain knowledge about the use context and accessibility to key experts or end users pose significant challenges to the designer during the task clarification stage in understanding the end-user requirements.This article presents a computer-based design support tool, ACQUAINT-SALTT, based on a prescriptive computer architecture that allows the generation of affordance-based requirements (ABRs) for an emerging family of products known as speech and language therapeutic toys (SALTTs).Considering affordances, the end-user requirements can be detailed as a relationship between the product and the user within a context while keeping the problem as abstract as possible without restricting creativity.A prototype therapeutic toy, Olly Speaks, was developed and evaluated through usability studies carried out with clinicians, caregivers, and pre-schoolers to assess its therapeutic impact both within and outside the clinic.

This study evaluates the ability of different measures of socioeconomic status (SES) to predict lexical outcomes for preschoolers raised in a context of nationwide bilingualism. The participants were 58 children aged 3;11-4;3 from Maltese-dominant homes who attended state preschools. Receptive picture name judgement and picture naming, in Maltese and English, were employed to measure receptive and expressive lexical abilities, respectively. Lexical outcomes for four individual SES variables and a single composite SES measure were similar but not directly interchangeable. The composite SES variable emerged as most strongly predictive of children's lexical performance. Receptive judgement of phonological accuracy improved similarly in both languages with higher composite SES. Naming skills increased significantly in English but not in Maltese, suggesting differences in English input related to parental SES. A focus on SES in relation to lexical skills in two majority languages is novel and adds to current understanding of normative bilingual acquisition.

Aims and objectives: This study measured bilingual lexical skills in children just starting preschool and in others who had been attending preschool for one year. It aimed to investigate how children’s lexical abilities were influenced by length of contact with structured bilingual input at school, in a context where two majority languages are taught through the educational system. Methodology: The participants were 72 children starting their first and second year in preschool, aged 2;11–3;4 ( N = 35) and 3;11–4;4 years ( N = 37), respectively. The children came from Maltese-dominant homes and attended the same state preschool where, in line with established bilingual educational policy, they were expected to receive systematic oral exposure to English. Receptive picture name judgement and picture naming tasks in Maltese and English were employed to measure receptive and expressive lexical abilities. Data and analysis: Correct receptive judgement and naming responses were analysed as a function of age group and language of testing. Findings: Comparison of 3- and 4-year-old performance revealed marked growth in Maltese but limited improvement in English for the older group. This profile was inconsistent with lexical outcomes expected for children receiving significant exposure to a second language (L2) in preschool. The findings call for reconsideration of the assumption that preschool entry for Maltese-dominant children and the sequential bilingual exposure associated with it bring about an improvement in L2 lexical abilities. School and home bilingual input, children’s learning demands and Malta’s sociolinguistic context were considered as possible contributing factors. Originality: To our knowledge, a focus on preschoolers’ lexical skills in two typologically distant, majority languages against a backdrop of stable bilingualism is novel. Significance: Given the bilingual stability and socio-cultural uniformity of the broader context for this study, the findings are proposed as a point of reference for evaluating preschoolers’ bilingual lexical skills.

This study explored individual variability in the bilingual vocabularies of 65 Maltese children aged 23–27 months (N = 33) and 30–34 months (N = 32). Most of the participants' direct input consisted of Maltese sentences embedding English words. Bilingualism was present at the societal level. Word production was measured through parental report, using a bilingual adaptation of the vocabulary checklist in the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. The participants' composite and single-language vocabulary measures were examined for central tendencies and age effects, together with individual usage of Maltese and English words. The study also investigated how demographic and language exposure factors, documented through parental questionnaire responses, accounted for individual differences in participants' vocabularies. Proportionally adjusted single-language scores showed 61.54% of children to use fewer Maltese words than expected. Maternal education level emerged as a significant predictor of Total Vocabulary and Maltese word scores, but explained very little of the variance for each. Frequency of English language exposure in main caregiver input and age group emerged as factors explaining 30.5% of the variance in English vocabulary scores. Maternal education level and frequency of English exposure may therefore act as protective factors in the vocabulary development of children receiving Maltese-dominant exposure.

This article investigates whether the bilingual status of 56 typically developing children aged 60-69 months influenced their lexical abilities. The participants were identified as Maltese-dominant (Me) (n = 21), English-dominant (Em) (n = 15) and balanced bilingual (ME) (n = 20) on the basis of language exposure and proficiency, as reported by their parents. Comprehension and production of nouns and verbs were measured using Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT) in Maltese (CLT-MT) and British English (CLT-EN). Significant effects of bilingual group were identified for performance on lexical comprehension. For production, consistent bilingual group effects resulted when accurate concepts lexicalised in the test language were scored. Lexical mixing was more pronounced when children were tested in their non-dominant language. Maltese noun production elicited the highest levels of mixing across all groups. Findings point towards the need to consider specific exposure dynamics to each language within a single language pair when assessing children's bilingual lexical skills.

Children at risk for persistent difficulties are best identified early, when they are most likely to benefit from early intervention. Early identification is assisted by the recognition of known risk and protective factors for children's language development. Despite inconsistencies across studies in identified predictors of language outcome, various environmental factors have been reported as significant to children's language status. When children's language exposure is bilingual, the variability characterising early vocabulary production is compounded even further. Collectively, the results reported here may contribute to a better theoretical understanding of the universal mechanisms involved in bilingual language acquisition. The identification of clinically significant bilingual delays is complicated by additional variation stemming from bilingual exposure characteristics, such as the amount of exposure received in each language, the timing of this exposure and even its pattern. Environmental variables associated with higher or lower levels of monolingual vocabulary development also merit consideration with children raised bilingually.

Aims and objectives: This study documents early lexical expression in children whose language input in the home was predominantly Maltese, accompanied by regular exposure to English lexical mixing. Bilingualism and language contact were also present at the societal level. The study attempts to determine whether the children’s pattern of vocabulary growth corresponded to a monolingual or bilingual mode of development. Methodology: The expressive vocabularies of 60 children aged 1;0 to 2;6 years were measured using caregiver reports and language sampling. Data and analysis: Expressive scores representing total vocabulary, Maltese and English words as well as translation equivalents were derived from the language samples and caregiver-completed vocabulary checklists. Findings and conclusions: Both Maltese and English words were identified in the children’s expressive vocabularies. Higher translation equivalent proportions were reported across daily settings than were sampled. Participants seemed to introduce new equivalents for words previously used in one language according to the needs of the communicative context. These findings demonstrate a basic level of bilingualism in the participants and suggest selective use of equivalents in response to environmental demands. The latter would imply the presence of a double lexical system, indicating a more refined bilingual status, although insufficient contextual evidence made this a tentative proposition. Fragmented exposure to English appeared unable to support the participants’ bilingual development beyond the lexical domain. Originality: While documenting lexical development in children exposed to a distinctive language-learning context that is as yet under-researched, this study adds to the limited evidence on lexical expression in young children exposed to substantial lexical mixing in their input. Significance: These findings highlight the development of bilingual proficiency as a process that spreads across linguistic levels in accordance with input variables. They also suggest that Maltese children’s bilingual lexicons may have the potential to kick-start their sequential bilingual development once systematic exposure to integral English is introduced through schooling.

The comprehension of constituent questions is an important topic for language acquisition research and for applications in the diagnosis of language impairment. This article presents the results of a study investigating the comprehension of different types of questions by 5-year-old, typically developing children across 19 European countries, 18 different languages, and 7 language (sub-)families. The study investigated the effects of two factors on question formation: (a) whether the question contains a simple interrogative word like ‘who’ or a complex one like ‘which princess’, and (b) whether the question word was related to the sentential subject or object position of the verb. The findings show that there is considerable variation among languages, but the two factors mentioned consistently affect children’s performance. The cross-linguistic variation shows that three linguistic factors facilitate children’s understanding of questions: having overt case morphology, having a single lexical item for both ‘who’ and ‘which’, and the use of synthetic verbal forms.

This paper compared the vocabulary size of a group of 250 bilinguals aged 24-36 months acquiring six different language pairs using an analogous tool, and attempted to identify factors that influence vocabulary sizes and ultimately place children at risk for language delay. Each research group used adaptations of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences and a specially designed developmental and language background questionnaire to gather information on risk factors for language impairment, demographic and language exposure variables. The results showed a wide range in vocabulary development which could be somewhat attributed to mothers' education status, parental concerns about language development and amount of exposure to the second language. We looked at those children performing below the 10th and above the 90th percentile to determine what factors were related to their vocabulary size. Features of the entire group of lower performing children were fewer than 50 words and the absence of two-word combinations by 24 months, lower levels of parental education and parental concerns about language development. The implications for identifying bilingual children at risk for language impairment as well as the language enrichment that might be needed for young bilinguals are outlined.

Auditory processing disorder is described as a mixture of unrefined listening skills which, despite normal hearing, causes poor speech perception. These difficulties have also been reported in children with a diagnosis of language impairment (LI), literacy difficulties (LD)1, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The purpose of this study is to describe and compare the listening performance of typically developing (TD) children with those diagnosed with LI, LD, and ADHD on an assessment battery of auditory processing (AP) and language processing (LP). One hundred and one TD children and 53 children with a clinical diagnosis were assessed using four subtests of AP presenting linguistic stimuli, three AP subtests with non-linguistic stimuli and an assessment of LP. Parents of all children were required to fill in a questionnaire related to their listening difficulties. Parental report for the TD group on average yielded the lowest score, indicating fewer difficulties with listening skills in the TD group. The listening difficulties exhibited in the Maltese participants diagnosed with LI, LD and ADHD were mainly specific to the AP subtests using linguistic stimuli. The LI and LD groups generally performed significantly worse than the TD group on all AP subtests using linguistic stimuli, while the ADHD group performed significantly worse than the TD group on some of these tests. The same pattern did not emerge for the subtests using non-linguistic stimuli. Few significant effects between groups were evident. The LI groups were found to perform the weakest in all tests of language processing.

There is a paucity of research addressing the lexical skills of Maltese school-aged children. For the clinical population, the only available standardised assessment that addresses lexical skills, alongside morphosyntactic and narrative abilities, derives naturalistic measures from a story re-tell task (Grech, Franklin and Dodd, 2011). Although clinically useful, the procedure involved is laborious and time-consuming. Assessment tools for Maltese children that specifically address vocabulary size through a structured approach are not available. This paper reports on the comprehension and expression of nouns and verbs in 56 typicallydeveloping Maltese children aged between 5;0 and 5;6 years who were attending their first year of primary schooling. Depending on their bilingual status, each participant was assigned to one of three sub-cohorts, a Maltese-dominant sequential bilingual group (N = 20), an English-dominant sequential bilingual group (N = 15) and a simultaneous bilingual group (N = 21). Bilingual status was determined on the basis of preliminary parental opinion at the consent stage. Further information on the children’s developmental and language background was gathered using the Questionnaire for Parents of Bilingual Children (PaBiQ) (COST IS0804, 2011). Maltese and British English Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks, designed within COST Action IS0804 (Haman, Luniewska & Pomiechowska, 2015), were administered to the participants, so that their comprehension and production of nouns and verbs in each of their two languages could be gauged. Means and standard deviations of receptive and expressive scores for nouns and verbs in both languages were derived for each bilingual group. Data were analysed for differences in language performance within each group. Receptive and expressive measures were also examined for differences across language groups. Findings will be discussed in terms of trends observed in the lexical skills of the typically-developing participants. The paper also reports on a follow-up study in which a Maltese-dominant boy with language impairment, aged 6;2 years, was assessed using the same tasks. Despite the age difference, his scores were compared to the data obtained from the typically-developing Maltese-dominant group, the latter providing important preliminary reference measures against which to evaluate the clinical data. The potential of joint use of the Maltese and British English Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks in assisting the evaluation and diagnosis of vocabulary skills in language-impaired Maltese children will be discussed. ∗Speaker †Corresponding author: daniela.gatt@um.edu.mt sciencesconf.org:bisli:55352

Significance Although much research has been devoted to the acquisition of number words, relatively little is known about the acquisition of other expressions of quantity. We propose that the order of acquisition of quantifiers is related to features inherent to the meaning of each term. Four specific dimensions of the meaning and use of quantifiers are found to capture robust similarities in the order of acquisition of quantifiers in similar ways across 31 languages, representing 11 language types.