A Comparison of Morpho-Syntactic Development in monolingual and bilingual Preschoolers

The present study aims to compare the language development of normal Persian and Persian-Turkish preschoolers using PDSS as a morpho-syntactic measure and determine if bilingualism has any effects on language development. Subjects included ۳۰ Persian and ۳۰ Persian- Turkish preschoolers from the middle social class at the three age groups of ۳۷-۴۶, ۴۷-۵۶, and ۵۷-۶۶ months old. Language background and ASQ II questionnaires were completed by the children’s parents in order to match the subjects in terms of their language background and some abilities like problem-solving, communication, and personal-social skills. Picture description and storytelling was used as a way to collect the language samples of the subjects. Intragroup and intergroup comparisons were done by ANOVA and independent t-test, respectively. The correlation between the age and PDSS scores of both language groups indicates the PDSS score sensitivity to age. Moreover, results show that monolinguals outperform their bilingual peers in the PDSS procedure only at the age of ۵۷-۶۶ months old. In sum, no evidence was found in support of the positive effect of bilingualism on the language development of preschoolers.

Keywords:

bilingualism , Language Development , Morpho-Syntactic Development , Persian Developmental Sentence Scoring