Faroese children’s early vocabulary acquisition: A Faroese adaptation of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories

Abstract

The focus of this article is Faroese children’s early vocabulary acquisition using a Faroese adaptation of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MBCDI) parental report. The study is a population-based cross-sectional study including 1135 children aged 8–36 months. The article has two objectives: the first is to describe the Faroese adaptation of the MBCDI, and the second is to examine Faroese children’s early vocabulary acquisition. Selected percentile levels for vocabulary comprehension and production are presented, as well as gender differences and developmental trends. The study finds evidence for a spurt in productive vocabulary in the second year of life, and that vocabulary comprehension preceded production, with both showing increases with age similar to those described in the literature for other languages. Girls had an advantage in vocabulary production over boys, resulting in a significant gender difference. Finally, the early lexical composition of Faroese children is notable in that it contains a substantial number of baby-word forms.