Abstract
Early child language acquisition in Mandarin by Malaysian Chinese children is under-explored. Following the establishment of the first Speech Sciences academic programme at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in 1994, there is a need to develop language tests to assess children who might be at risk for language disorders and to provide remediation accordingly by professionals such as speech therapists. The present study aims to adapt a contemporary British English test: The New Reynell Developmental Language Scales (NRDLS) to Mandarin. Since NRDLS is widely-used to assess language comprehension and language production, the aim of the present research therefore is to propose adaptation of NRDLS to Mandarin. The present research also aims to provide preliminary norms (age of acquisition for target structures and errors) for the local children. Underlying factors which might influence child language development i.e. age, gender and socio-economic status (maternal education) are also examined. Using a cross-sectional study of 40 children aged 2;00-6;11, the present study aims to describe child language acquisition based on performance of the adapted NRDLS. The present results show that language skills advanced with age. Gender and maternal education do not affect child language development. Overall, children demonstrated a more superior language comprehension than language production. The adapted New Reynell Developmental Language Scales-Mandarin (NDRLS-M) is developmentally sensitive though further revisions are required. The present findings implicate an influence of universality and ambient language effects on acquisition of Mandarin. The present findings also implicate a need to develop a bilingual Mandarin-English version of NRDLS-M.
Highlights
Young children acquire first words in first year of life, and combine words to form sentences using morphemes from second year of life (Owen, 2016)
It can be concluded that age affects early child language development
Consistent with the previous findings of English language (Letts et al, 2013), the present data indicates a more superior language comprehension than language production. These findings implicate the influences of language universality, not surprising given that all children are subject to language acquisition device, cognition and world knowledge (Genesee, 2003)
Summary
Young children acquire first words in first year of life, and combine words to form sentences using morphemes (e.g. prepositions) from second year of life (Owen, 2016). Existing literature has reported language disorders in Chinese pre-school children including the local ones (Looi, 2010). Based on eISSN : 2550-2131 ISSN: 1675-8021 observation and discussions with the local Chinese SLTs, most SLTs have used informal assessments or language sampling and interpret the results loosely based on their intuition, experience and knowledge about local Mandarin child language development They have relied heavily on the widely-used informal language test, the Malaysian Development Language Assessment Kit (MDLAK)(Faust, Mullis & Solomon)(1992). MDLAK provides a list of early words and sentences with approximate age norms deriving from general knowledge about child language development. MDLAK has not been standardized on local children including the Chinese population the test is not valid in this context
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