Influence of internal and external factors on early language skills: A cross-linguistic study

Cross-linguistic studies can provide information about general and language specific features of language development, but relatively few such studies are available in literature. The main aim of the present study was to investigate, from a cross-linguistic perspective, the roles of the internal factor of gender and external factors of birth order and parental education level on the development of language in 2-year-old children. We examined 351 children growing up in three European language contexts: Croatian (N = 104), Estonian (N = 141) and Finnish (N = 106). Information on lexical skills and word combination ability was collected using the short form of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories and the influence of background factors on these aspects of language development was investigated. No significant differences were found in lexical skills or word combination ability among the three language groups. These aspects of language development varied significantly with gender, but not with external factors. Our findings suggest that internal factors may influence early language development more than external factors.