Parental report evidence for toddlers’ grammar and vocabulary in Bulgarian

Abstract

This is the first study of a large sample of Bulgarian-speaking toddlers and their communicative development. A Bulgarian adaptation of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventory Words and Sentences was used to obtain parent report data on 153 children between the ages of 20 and 30 months. Lexical and grammatical development were examined as a function of age, gender, and maternal education. While evidence was found for both lexical and grammatical developmental changes with age even in this age-restricted sample, gender had little effect on developmental levels, especially on the grammar components of the instrument. Maternal education was a significant predictor of children’s developmental achievements and there was considerable individual variability. The development of lexical and grammatical knowledge was found to be correlated significantly.