Acquiring the First Words by Persian Toddlers - A Longitudinal Study Using the MacAuthor-Bates Inventory

Sep 29, 2026

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A longitudinal study examines early comprehension and production vocabulary development in a group of Persian-speaking toddlers. Mothers of 33 typical children completed the Persian McArthur-Bates communicative development inventories seven times per month across ages 12–14 to 19–21 months. SPSS 21 non-parametric analyses show a significant vocabulary increase for both comprehension and production between 15 and 16 months, and marked growth in phrase comprehension across the six-month interval. Individual word spurt patterns vary by month and word level, with nouns dominating early stages while verbs grow faster.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Results

Conclusion

References and Citation Information

Research Article Acquiring the First Words by Persian Toddlers: A Longitudinal Study Using the MacAuthor-Bates Inventory Asma Ebtedaei1 , Fatemeh Paknazar2 , Raheb Ghorbani2 , Masoomeh Salmani3* 1. Department of Speech and Language Therapy, Varastegan University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran. 2. Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran. 3. Neuromuscular Rehabilitation Research Center, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran. Use your device to scan and read the article online Article info: Received: 8 Jan 2022 Accepted: 1 Feb 2022 Available Online: 01 Oct 2023 Keywords: Child; Language development; Semantics; Vocabulary A B S T RA C T Introduction: Arobust vocabulary improves all areas of communication. Vocabulary is critical to a child’s success to think and learn about the world. Expanding a child’s knowledge of words provides unlimited access to new information. This study describes the early development of comprehension and production vocabularies in a group of Persian-speaking toddlers. Materials and Methods: The mothers of 33 typical, Persian-speaking toddlers during 6 months (from 12-14 months to 19-21 months) completed the Persian McArthur-Bates communicative development inventories 7 times per month. The collected data were analyzed via the SPSS software, version 21, through non-parametric tests. Results: The results indicated that the only significant increase for both vocabularies was between 15 and 16 months (P comprehension=0.045 and P production=0.027). The development of phrase comprehension showed significant increases during six months (P<0.001). Further analysis of production vocabulary growth demonstrated the word spurt in each child (in different months and with different word levels). According to the figures, the composition of vocabulary production was different during the selected 6 months. Nouns were the largest group during the 50-, 100-, and 200-word stages; however, verbs presented a faster rate of development. Both genders showed significant changes during follow-ups (P<0.001) and there were no significant differences between the vocabularies of different genders (P>0.05). Conclusion: Persian-speaking children follow commonalities of lexical development reported for different languages; however, few differences could be traced between these children and their peers from other languages. * Corresponding Author: Masoomeh Salmani, Associate Professor. Address: Department of Speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran. Tel: +98 (912) 831 0924 [E-mail:](E-mail: salmani_masoome@yahoo.com)[ salmani_masoome@yahoo.com](E-mail: salmani_masoome@yahoo.com) Copyright © 2023 Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Published by Tehran University of Medical Sciences This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) . Noncommercial uses of the work are permitted, provided the original work is properly cited. Citation Ebtedaei A, Paknazar F, Ghorbani R, Salmani M. Acquiring the First Words by Persian Toddlers: A Longitudinal Study Using the MacAuthor-Bates Inventory. Journal of Modern Rehabilitation. 2023; 17(4):375-385. [http://dx.doi](http://dx.doi). org/10.18502/jmr.v17i4.13885 [http://dx.doi.org/10.18502/jmr.v17i4.13885](http://dx.doi.org/10.18502/jmr.v17i4.13885) 375 October 2023, Volume 17, Number 4 | | October 2023, Volume 17, Number 4 | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | 1. Introduction stage, word acquisition shows remarkable acceleration | | | | | | (a threshold of 50 words) [16] . Such a phenomenon has | | | | | | S | ince 1992, numerous studies have examined early lexical development to recognize crosslinguistic variation using parent reports of vocabulary u

FAQs

What vocabulary stages and ages were tracked in this study?

Mothers assessed vocabulary from 12–14 months through 19–21 months across six months, completing the inventories seven times per month.

When did the largest significant increases occur for comprehension and production?

The only significant increase for both comprehension and production vocabularies occurred between 15 and 16 months (P comprehension=0.045; P production=0.027).

Did nouns or verbs develop faster in Persian toddlers?

Nouns were the largest group at the 50-, 100-, and 200-word stages, while verbs showed a faster rate of development.

Sep 29, 2026

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