Aims and objectives: The study investigates the effects of family background and language exposure on the language abilities of Turkish-Dutch bilingual children in their heritage language, Turkish, as well as in the majority language, Dutch. Methodology: Thirty-five children (3;01-6;11) participated in the study. All children took two standardized proficiency tests: CELF-Preschool 2 in Dutch and TEDİL in Turkish. Parents were interviewed on the family background and on the children’s use of and exposure to Dutch and Turkish. Data and analysis: Children’s test scores in Dutch and Turkish were analyzed in relation to the amount of exposure to Dutch and Turkish and the socio-economic and linguistic background of the parents. Findings: The results reveal that the children’s home context—both the linguistic background of the parents and the socio-educational level of the mother—affected the children’s scores, especially for Dutch. The amount of exposure to and use of Dutch and Turkish was correlated to the Dutch and Turkish scores. A qualitative discussion of children’s profiles revealed that children’s performance can only be fully understood when details of the home context, obtained through interviews with the parents, are taken into account. Originality: To date, few studies on bilingual children from families with a migration background have examined young children’s general language abilities in both the heritage language and the majority language. Implications: The study raises awareness of the importance of evaluating bilingual children’s language proficiencies in both languages, considering the effects of family background and language exposure on children’s bilingual language development. Limitations: The children’s language abilities were mapped on the basis of widely recognized standardized tests originally developed for the assessment of monolingual children. As more bilingual instruments are being tested and developed, future research will benefit from these tools.

AbstractNouns and verbs are considered as fundamental categories of lexical development, and there are contradicting views on the order of the acquisition. One view claims that nouns are acquired earlier than verbs and this primacy of nouns can be attributed to perceptual-conceptual constraints from a linguistic point of view, on the other hand, nouns and verbs are the lexical units which categorically highlight language-general and language-specific characteristics. These language-specific characteristics have motivated this research because of the different typological characteristics between Turkish and Dutch in terms of nouns and verbs. The aim of this study is two-fold: to investigate the Dutch and Turkish lexicon of Turkish-Dutch bilingual children with respect to noun-verb categories and to consider the role of gender. Our sample comprised 55 Turkish-Dutch bilingual children aged between 9 and 36 months. We found that age, language and gender are at play during early lexical development. Vocabulary develops after 12 months and nouns are prioritized over verbs both in comprehension and production.

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> In the current literature, there is a well-established necessity for the improvement of bilingual language diagnostics. Nowadays, the majority of clinicians in Belgium still rely on standardized tests with monolingual norm samples. It is therefore fundamental to have a detailed knowledge of the performance of bilingual children on these monolingual normed tests. Furthermore, there is also a need for unambiguous longitudinal research on the language performances of bilingual children. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the language skills of 25 Turkish-Dutch successive bilinguals compared to 25 age- and gender-matched monolingual Dutch children. In 9 bilinguals and 13 monolinguals, longitudinal data of 3 years (at 6 years and at 9 years) were collected and compared. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The subject group consisted of 25 bilingual Turkish-Dutch children with a mean age of 9 years and 6 months (SD 0.26 years, min. 8 years and 11 months to max. 9 years and 10 months) with Turkish as the dominant home language. Language exposure to Dutch was at least 3 years. An age- and gender-matched control group of 25 monolingual Dutch children with same educational backgrounds was compiled. Language skills were investigated using the Dutch version of the CELF. In 22 children, language skills were reassessed 3 years later in a follow-up study. Data were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Language comprehension and production were significantly lower in the bilingual children compared to the monolinguals. After 3 years, the language delay in bilingual Turkish-Dutch children remained the same. Language production in the bilingual children was mainly influenced by the profession of the mother and the home language. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> The low performances of typically developing Turkish-Dutch children on language batteries are worrying and have clinical implications. The same language gap was found at the age of 6 and 9 years in Turkish-Dutch bilingual children compared to monolingual Dutch children, implying that the bilingual children did not catch up with their peers.

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