Analysing Language Growth in the Majority Language German in Bi-/Multilingual Preschool Children

Theoretical background: Multilingual children differ substantially in their language abilities, however data on the developmental trajectories for different language measures are scarce. Objective: To describe developmental trajectories for different language measures in the majority language German in multilingual children over the age of 3 to 6 years. Method: We examined the developmental trajectories for several language abilities (receptive and expressive vocabulary, sentence repetition, narrative abilities) in the majority language German in 243 multilingual children. Results: Average language performance increased in all language measures, though there were substantial interindividual differences in the developmental rates which were most pronounced for expressive vocabulary. The relationship between the children's initial language proficiency and their developmental rate differed between the language measures. Negative correlations were found for sentence repetition and receptive vocabulary, whereas a high positive correlation resulted for expressive vocabulary. This indicates that children with higher initial expressive vocabulary showed faster growth than children with lower initial vocabulary. Discussion and conclusion: Multilingual children differ substantially in the rate at which they increase their proficiency in the majority language German. However, the magnitude of these interindividual differences and the relationship between initial proficiency level and the rate of development depend on the language ability measured. We plan follow-up analyses to identify child-internal and environmental factors that account for the identified differences in developmental rates.