Lexical repertoire of 24 and 30-month-old children speaking Brazilian portuguese: preliminary results.

Abstract

Purpose: To check the lexical repertoire of Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children at 24 and 30 months of age and the association between the number of words spoken and the following variables: socioeconomic status, parents' education, presence of siblings in the family, whether or not they attend school, and excessive use of tablets and cell phones.

Methods: 30 parents of children aged 24 months living in the state of São Paulo participated in the study. Using videoconferencing platforms, they underwent a speech-language pathology anamnesis, an interview with social services, and then they completed the "MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory - First Words and Gestures" as soon as their children were 24 and 30 months old. Quantitative and qualitative inferential inductive statistics were applied.

Results: the median number of words produced was 283 at 24 months and 401 at 30 months, indicating an increase of around 118 words after six months. The child attending a school environment had a significant relationship with increased vocabulary.

Conclusion: The study reinforces the fact that vocabulary grows with age and corroborates the fact that children aged 24 months already have a repertoire greater than 50 words. Those who attend school every day produce at least 70 more words than those who do not.