La relazione fra sviluppo fonologico e lessicale nel terzo anno di vita

The aims of this study are to explore the relations between phonological and lexical development at the beginning of the third year of age and to study some variables which are related with succeeding language ability. A longitudinal study design with two assessments was used. The sample comprised 43 children aged between 24 and 31 months and attending a day-care centre. At the first assessment (24-31 months) language development was evaluated using the Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) (Caselli, Casadio, 1995) and the Assessment of Phonological Production of Children (Bortolini, 1995a). At the second assessment, one year later, a direct evaluation of receptive and productive language was carried out using a comprehensive language test called Assessment of Language Test –Preschool level (Cianchetti, Sannio Fancello, 1997). At the first assessment a strong association between phonological and lexical development was found: splitting up our sample into three groups according to the total number of words at the CDI, we found significant differences in several measures extracted from the direct assessment, especially in the phonetic repertoire. Nevertheless, lexical competence is the variable with the highest correlation with language skills one year later. The number of consonants produced at the first assessment is moderately correlated with succeeding morphological and phonological accuracy, but not with other measures of language development.