Projects

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• Narrative Development in Childhood: A Study of Typical Language and Developmental Language Disorder

  The research project is conducted in Lithuania, from 2023 to 2028. The researchers involved in this project are Assoc. Prof. Laura Kamandulytė-Merfeldienė and Jonas Stepšys, PhD student.

  The project investigates narrative development in Lithuanian-speaking children aged 4;0–6;11, with a particular focus on children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and their typically developing peers. The primary aim is to examine the characteristics of narrative macrostructure and microstructure and to identify developmental patterns associated with age and language competence.

  Narrative data are elicited using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN), which allows for structured and cross-linguistically comparable assessment across tasks and age groups. The study includes three age groups (4;0–4;11, 5;0–5;11, and 6;0–6;11). Each age group consists of 60 children diagnosed with Developmental Language Disorder and 60 typically developing children (in total, 360 children).

  All participants completed two narrative tasks: a story retelling task and a storytelling task. The picture sequences (The Dog, The Cat, The Baby Birds, and The Baby Goats) are counterbalanced across tasks to maintain methodological consistency and control for task effects. 

  Data were transcribed and coded using CHAT format (CHILDES). The data are now being analysed.

  For any inquiries, do not hesitate to contact us at jonas.stepsys@vdu.lt or laura.kamandulyte@vdu.lt

• Adapting MAIN to Bosnian

  The project of adapting MAIN to Bosnian was initiated in January 2021 by Dr. Perović. It is a language spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This adaptation closely follows the Serbian version of MAIN – MTPN (Jeličić et al., 2020) as Bosnian is closely related to Serbian (and Croatian). Until recently, these languages were subsumed under the name Serbo-Croatian. Research of narratives in Bosnian is practically non-existent, both with monolinguals and bilinguals. During this project, data will be collected from two groups of participants: Bosnian monolingual adults and Bosnian heritage adult speakers in Germany. As this project also functions as a master’s thesis for the European Master’s in Clinical Linguistics+ program, a closer analysis of nominal morphology in the narratives of Bosnian heritage speakers will be performed.

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  • ZIP main_bosnian_stories-recordings.zip (22.14 MB)

• BIVEM Study (ZAS)

  The long-term BIVEM study was carried out from 2012 to 2016 at the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (Leibniz-ZAS) in Berlin, Germany, under the direction of Natalia Gagarina, coordination of Nathalie Topaj and active participation of other colleagues. The study was funded by the Senate of Berlin within the Berlin Interdisciplinary Network for Multilingualism (BIVEM) as well as by Leibniz-ZAS and BMBF.

  The BIVEM study dealt with effectiveness of language support measures (additive vs. integrative) from early age on language development of Russian-German and Turkish-German bilingual children between 2 and 6 years old, with influence of age of onset and length of exposure to German and influence of home language on language development as well as with other aspects of language acquisition. In total, over 160 bilingual children participated in the study, starting from age 2;1 to 3;11. After a pretest three cycles of language support measures took place over a period of four years, each time followed by an extensive test phase. MAIN was a part of the test battery.

  MAIN was conducted in Russian, Turkish, and German, with elicitation modes model story + comprehension questions followed by telling + comprehension questions (pretest – post 2); in the last test phase (post 3) telling + comprehension questions. A subset of data with a detailed information on testing points and age groups was published in open access at Zenodo.

  More information about the BIVEM study 

• IFV Study (ZAS)

  The IFV study is a follow-up study based on the BIVEM study and was carried out at the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (Leibniz-ZAS) in Berlin, Germany under the direction of Natalia Gagarina, coordination of Nathalie Topaj and active participation of other colleagues, most notably Sophia Czapka. It was conducted from 2016 to 2021 and supported by the Senate of Berlin. The study dealt with the acquisition and development of reading and writing skills, narrative skills and general language development in German among primary school children as well as with long-term predictors of literacy and narrative skills based on the data from the BIVEM study.

  340 children participated in the study, including 62 Russian-German and Turkish-German bilingual children from the BIVEM study, bilingual children with many other home languages, and German monolingual children. All participants were tested in grades 1–3 (6 to 10–year-olds) at the end of each school year. MAIN was a part of the test battery.

  MAIN was conducted in Russian, Turkish, and German in different elicitation modes. At the end of the 1st grade MAIN was conducted in telling (without comprehension questions) and in additionally designed dictated mode; at the end of the 2nd grade MAIN was conducted in the written mode, specifically designed for the study; at the end of the 3rd grade MAIN was conducted in the written and oral (telling without comprehension questions) modes. A subset of data was published in open access at Zenodo.

  Further information about the IFV study

• Macrostructure Components in Narration of Kurmanji-Turkish Bilinguals and Turkish Monolinguals

  The data of the project was collected in Turkey but the project was conducted in HablaLab, University of California, Irvine, USA. The researchers involved in the project were; Seda Esersin, Dr. Elizabeth D. Peña, Dr. Mine Dogucu, Dr. A. Müge Tunçer and Dr. İlknur Maviş. The Project started in May, 2019 and the paper is getting ready to be submitted in 2 months. The resource used to fund the Project was the monthly payment to the first author from the Anadolu University. The goals of the Project were to analyze macrostructure components in Kurmanji-Turkish bilingual children and compare them to the Turkish monolingual peers. Thus, 65 (typically developed) children were included in the study. 35 children were Turkish monolinguals and 30 were Kurmanji-Turkish bilinguals. There were 3 age groups: 4, 5, 6.

• Investigation of Diagnostic validity of MAIN, CL-NWRT and PaBiQ in German-Turkish Bilinguals and Turkish Monolinguals

  The monolingual data of the project was collected in Turkey, the bilingual data is planned to be collected in Germany. The project started in Anadolu University, Turkey in 2020 and will be completed in ZAS, Germany. The researchers involved in the project are; Seda Esersin, Dr. A. Müge Tunçer, Dr. İlknur Maviş and Natalia Gagarina. The resource used to fund the Project was the monthly payment to the first author from the Anadolu University. The goals of the Project are to investigate the diagnostic validity of MAIN, CL-NWRT and PaBiQ in German-Turkish bilinguals and Turkish monolinguals. Thus, in total 120 bilingual and monolingual children (60 typically developed, 60 with a language disorder) will be included in the study. There are 3 age groups: 4, 5, 6.

• Narrative abilities in ‘left-behind’ ethnic minority children in China: Evidence from Kam-Mandarin bilingual children

  The project »Narrative abilities in ›left-behind‹ ethnic minority children in China: Evidence from Kam-Mandarin bilingual children« is supported by Fritz Thyssen Fellowship (Ref. 40.20.0.002SL). The principal investigator is Dr. Wenchun Yang (Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin) and co-investigators are Dr. Angel Chan (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) and Prof. Dr. Natalia Gagarina (Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin). Kam, a minority language in China, belongs to the Tai–Kadai language family. »left-behind« children are those who remain in the rural areas, as their parent(s) left them behind and went to cities for employment.

  This project addresses the following questions: i) Do the »left-behind« Kam-Mandarin bilingual children who are culturally and linguistically distinct from their European counterparts follow the common developmental trajectories reported in the literature? ii) How does this unique social-communicative environment affect the development of children’s narrative competence? iii) What are the relationships between narrative and lexical and morphosyntactic abilities? Children’s narrative production and comprehension abilities were assessed by MAIN (Gagarina et al., 2019) adapted in Kam (Yang et al., 2020) and Mandarin (Luo et al., 2020). Apart from the narrative skills, children’s language background, vocabulary, and morphosyntactic abilities were examined as well. Fifty-five Kam-Mandarin ethnic minority bilingual children aged 5 to 9 participated in this study. Data are now transcribing and analyzing.

• Remote Online Language Assessment: Comparison of The Narrative Skills of Monolingual Turkish Speaking Children with Typical Development and Developmental Language Disorder Through MAIN-TR

  The data of the project was collected in Turkey. The researchers involved in the project are; Semra Selvi-Balo and Dr. İlknur Maviş. The project started in Anadolu University, Turkey in 2020 and the data is ready to be analyzed. The resource used to fund the project was the monthly payment to the first author from the Anadolu University. The goals of the project were to analyze macrostructural components in Turkish monolingual children with typical development and developmental language disorder, and to compare them with each other. The research group of this project consists of a total of 128 children aged 45–89 months; monolingual Turkish speaking children with typical development (n=96) and developmental language disorder (n=32). MAIN-TR was conducted in three elicitation modes (retell, tell, model story) and comprehension questions were asked to the children following these modes. All the stories (The Cat, The Dog, The Baby Birds & The Baby Goats) were conducted in the study. Data were transcribed and scored. The statistical analyzes will be carried out soon.

• Narrative assessment of Catalan-Spanish bilingual children with typical development and at risk of developmental language disorder

  The project is conducted in Catalonia, Spain from 2019 to 2022, and is funded by ANID, PhD Scholarship Program Abroad (Becas Chile 72200469). The researchers involved in this project are Dr. Melina Aparici Aznar and Alondra Camus Torres, PhD student.

  The goal of the project is to provide a quantitative and qualitative description of narrative skills of Catalan-Spanish bilingual children from different ages in both languages. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute to the field by identifying narrative markers useful to distinguish typically developing bilingual children from bilingual children at risk of developmental language disorder.

  60 Spanish-Catalan bilingual children aged between 4 and 8 years have participated so far in the study, from which 48 of them had a typical development and 12 were at risk of developmental language disorder. MAIN was conducted in Catalan and Spanish (retelling elicitation mode and comprehension questions). Data were transcribed and coded using CHAT format (CHILDES project). The data are now being analysed.

• Promoting Inclusive Instruction for Active Participation in Diverse Classrooms

  The PIVOT project is co-financed by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Union and it aims to promote the oral language and active participation of primary school students aged 9–11 years old in inclusive classrooms. Specifically, over the course of 28 months, the PIVOT project research team envisions developing and testing an innovative academic intervention program using four inclusive teaching practices (i.e., direct instruction, peer tutoring, specific positive feedback, student active engagement) and wordless texts (i.e., videos with no words) to address student disparities in inclusive primary classrooms. To achieve this, a group experimental research design study will be conducted across four different European countries (Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania) to investigate the effects of the intervention on student oral language skills, oral comprehension, and active participation. Part of our assessment measures is using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives to assess students’ storytelling skills before and after the intervention. The measurement tool was chosen in this study as it is a comprehensive, valid, and user-friendly assessment that targets both comprehension and oral language components. It has been translated into a wide range of languages and serves our project’s administration needs.

  If you wish to get updates on our work, you may join us on our social media below
  Website: PIVOT project website 
  LinkedIn: PIVOT project on LinkedIn 

  For any inquiries, do not hesitate to contact Dr. Lefki Kourea via e-mail (Dr. Lefki Kourea, Project Principal Investigator).