Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31299/hrri.62.si.10
Risk factors associated with small expressive vocabularies in Portuguese speaking toddlers
Irene Cadime
; Psychology Research Center, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
*
Ana Lúcia Santos
; University of Lisbon, School of Arts and Humanities, Center of Linguistics, Lisbon, Portugal
Fernanda Leopoldina Viana
; Research Center on Child Studies, Institute of Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
This study investigates the individual and contextual factors associated with small expressive vocabularies in Portuguese-speaking toddlers. Data were drawn from the validation study of the European Portuguese MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences, which included 1,042 children between the ages of 24 and 30 months. Boys were nearly three times more likely to have a small expressive vocabulary than girls. Later entry into childcare and lower maternal education were also significant predictors. In contrast, birth order had no significant effect. The probability of having a small expressive vocabulary increased with the number of co-occurring risk factors, thus, underscoring the multifactorial and ecological nature of early language development.
Keywords
MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory; vocabulary; risk factors
Hrčak ID:
346302
URI
Publication date:
15.4.2026.
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