LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN OF AGE 18-35 MONTHS IN THIMPHU, BHUTAN

Abstract

Purpose: My objective to do this research was to see the vocabulary development of children of age 18-35 months in Thimphu, Bhutan by using Language Development Survey and compare with U.S with respect to:  Effect of age, gender and language on vocabulary score  Vocabulary composition between two languages and  Define late talkers and compare them with the typically developing children with same vocabulary size Method: I used Language Development Survey (Leslie Rescola, 1989) which consists of 310 words categorized in 14 parts for children of age 18-35 months in 4 day care centers, immunization ward of pediatric department and two communities. Survey was handed over to parents and teachers (to be handed over to parents) to tick off the words that the child spoke. My study consisted of 150 children while U.S sample consisted of 274 children. Result: Bhutanese children had lower vocabulary score compared to U.S. children with a vocabulary mean score of 160.7 (SD = 91.0) VS. 166 (SD = 103.6). In both the languages, girls had higher vocabulary score in comparison to boys and vocabulary sized tended to increase with the increase in age. With regard to vocabulary composition, Q correlation between Bhutan and English percentage use scores was .55 (p < .01) and younger children had higher cross linguistic concordance (0.61) compared to two higher age groups (0.55 and 0.43). In both the languages, the concordance between late talkers (children ≥ 24 months with vocabularies < 50 words) and younger children was highest. Conclusion: The result of this study was very similar to previous cross linguistic LDS studies signifying cross measure generalizability. Late talkers had very similar vocabulary composition to vocabulary matched younger children signifying that late talkers were just slow in learning and was not learning something different set.