The use of abstract, generalised expressions with core defining attributes shows further development of WD skills, such as A car is a vehicle that is used to transport people (Johnson & Anglin, 1995). Later on children might describe observable functional or perceptual features of the word, without mentioning key defining attributes, such as A car has wheels and doors. For example, if asked to define car the response could be We have a blue car. Young children’s definitions are often contextualised examples based on personal experience. This perspective highlights that word knowledge is a continuum with different levels (Verhallen & Schoonen, 1993).ĭevelopment of WD skills and influencing factorsĬhildren’s WD skills improve gradually with respect to both content and form during the school years (McGregor et al., 2012). Depth is assessed with tasks such as providing synonyms, word associations or definitions and the result is interpreted in terms of the precision of the answers, how much information is included or what developmental level the responses reflect (McGregor et al., 2012). Breadth is often measured with tasks requiring picture naming or pointing to a pictured referent and the result is interpreted in a binary manner with right or wrong answers. Vocabulary depth refers to the knowledge a person has of individual words (Schoonen & Verhallen, 2008). Vocabulary breadth refers to the total size of a person’s lexicon. Read, 2000), focussing on breadth or depth. Vocabulary knowledge is multifaceted and can be assessed in different ways (e.g. Finally, we evaluate the level of difficulty and the internal consistency of the WD task constructed for this study.Ī well-developed vocabulary is strongly related to overall language proficiency (Schmitt, 2010) and vocabulary skills are viewed as the most important factor for academic success (Vermeer, 2001). We also examine how the results are explained by the background factors bilingualism, level of parental education (LPE), school characteristics, general language ability, and non-verbal IQ. In this study, we examine the performance of elementary school children, age 6-9 years, on a WD task with respect to their knowledge of the words and how much information is included in their oral definitions. WD skills are required for preventing or repairing miscommunication in everyday conversation and are essential for academic success (Marinellie & Johnson, 2004). It is also a pragmatic task where a clear, concise and complete expression can aid the listener in processing the speaker’s intention (Gutierrez-Clellen & DeCurtis, 1999). Word definition (WD) tasks require both linguistic (vocabulary and grammar) and metalinguistic (using language to talk about language) skills (Marinellie & Johnson, 2004). Internal consistency was > α = 0.7 for both measurements.Ĭonclusion: Bilingual children performed lower than monolingual children on a WD task, but bilingualism alone cannot explain poor results. Response patterns on the WD score were similar between groups. With all background factors included, the only significant predictor was CELF-4 Core Language Score, uniquely explaining 24.3% of the variance. In isolation bilingualism explained 15% of the variance of the WD score. Result: The bilingual group had lower scores on both measures. Amount of information included in the definitions gave the WD score and number of words with at least partially correct information gave a Word knowledge score. Method: Two hundred and eight children (mean age 7:8, range 6:8–9:0) were assessed with a 10-item WD task. We also evaluate the level of difficulty of the test items and the test’s internal consistency. We investigate monolingual and bilingual children’s performances on a WD task, and how bilingualism, level of parental education, school characteristics (proportion of students with Swedish as second language and proportion of parents with tertiary education), CELF-4 Core Language Score, and non-verbal IQ contribute to their performance. Word definition (WD) tasks can be used to assess vocabulary depth and definition skills. Purpose: Vocabulary relates to overall language proficiency and is important for academic success.