Cross-linguistic differences in narration in Dutch and Flemish four year old children with a typical language development.

Abstract

Narration is becoming an important method to evaluate child language development. It requires complex language abilities and language use can be evaluated in a more or less natural context. The Dutch adaptation of the Renfrew Language Scales was used to examine cross-linguistic differences in Flemish and Dutch four year old children, matched on age, sex and social economic status. Differences were found on two variables concerning the pragmatics of story retelling and on the semantic-lexical aspect, more specific on GAP-verbs. Further research is suggested to examine both the semantic-lexical and semanticgrammatical aspect.