Early speech and language development plays a crucial role in a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional progress, as it forms the foundation for later communication and learning. A central milestone in this process is the emergence of first words, typically around the child’s first birthday, marking the transition from nonverbal to verbal communication. The aim of this master’s thesis was to analyze the first words of Slovenian children aged 12 to 18 months and to examine differences in their early expressive vocabulary according to age and gender. Data were collected through an online questionnaire completed by 62 parents of children with typical speech and language development. Parents listed all words their child spontaneously used, which enabled the analysis of vocabulary size, word frequency, and distribution across word classes.
The results showed that the size of expressive vocabulary increased significantly with age. Children aged 12–14 months produced an average of 6 words, those aged 14–16 months produced 9 words, and those aged 16–18 months produced 25 words. Gender differences were not statistically significant, although girls on average produced slightly more words than boys. The analysis of word classes revealed that nouns were predominant, followed by interjections and verbs, while other word classes were less represented. The most frequently produced words were mama (‘mom’), oče (‘dad’), jesti (‘eat’), ne (‘no’), babica (‘grandmother’), avto (‘car’), dedek (‘grandfather’), ja (‘yes’), muca (‘cat’), and ku-ku (‘peekaboo’).
The findings confirm that children’s first words are strongly related to their everyday environment and family relationships and highlight substantial individual differences in vocabulary size. This study contributes to the understanding of early speech and language development in Slovenian children and provides valuable insights for further research and speech-language pathology practice.
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