Abstract:
Normative data is an indispensable tool in clinical assessment and management of discrepancies of infant phonology and early expressive vocabulary. Though literature confined to this area is surplus, there is a dearth of normative studies primarily in regional Indian languages (eg, Kannada). Hence the present study aimed to track developmental trends in early phonological and expressive vocabulary development, namely, protowords, holophrastic words and true words in 12-24 months old typically developing Kannada speaking toddlers. Twenty four typically developing native Kannada speaking toddlers in the age range of 12-24 months (divided into two age groups 12-18 months and 18-24 months, with 6 participants in each age group) served as the participants of the study. Speech like utterances through various free play sessions from all the 24 participants were video recorded. These utterances were later transcribed and analyzed in terms of their communicative intent, meaning, situational cues and were categorized as being protowords, holophrastic words or true word productions. On applying descriptive statistics, it was found that holophrastic and protowords productions were found in all the participants of the younger age group (12-18 months), with their frequency declining in the older age group (18-24 months). These findings were thought to reflect their limited expressive vocabulary in comparison to their huge conceptual framework. True word productions showed the opposite trend of that of holophrastic and protowords, with their frequency being greater in the older age group compared to the younger age group. This finding signaled progressions in expressive vocabulary growth with advancing age. The current study revealed a progressive developmental trend in the field of child language acquisition.