Investigation of the effects of bilingualism on the development of receptive and expressive language in children in early childhood

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of bilingualism on the development of receptive and expressive language in early childhood. Material and Method: This research was conducted between the dates of 26.06.2018 and 15.04.2019. The sample of the study consists of 120 bilingual (n = 60) and monolingual (n = 60) children aged 2-7 years living in the central and connected villages of Adıyaman province. Personal information form and Turkish Early Language Development Test (TEDIL) were used for data collection. Appropriate statistic program was used for the analysis of the data obtained from the study. The obtained data were analyzed and evaluated using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, t test, Tukey, ANOVA and chi-square test. Results: When the socio-demographic characteristics of the children participating in the study are examined, 45.5% of the girls use one language and 54.5% use two languages; 55.6% of males use one language and 44.4% use two languages. It has been identified that of the monolingual children, 13.3% were in the group of 24-36 months, 20.0% were in the group of 36-48 months, 20.0% were in the group of 48-60 months, 33.3% were in the group of 60-72 months, 13.3% were in the group of 72-84 months; of the bilingual children, 11.7% were in the group of 24-36 months, 6.7% were in the group of 36-48 months, 23.3% were in the group of 48-60 months, 35.0% were in the group of 60-72 months and 23.3% were in the group of 72-84 months. While there was no significant difference in terms of age, gender, father's education level, number of siblings, ranking between siblings, school status, reading frequency and screen usage time of children, a statistically significant difference was found in terms of variables, such as the place where children live, mother's education status, mother and father's profession, family structure, the frequency of reading books with children, age of screen usage and with whom the screen is used. Conclusion: As a result of the study, the receptive and expressive language skills of bilingual and monolingual children were compared and statistically not a significant difference was found between the two groups. Key Words: Bilingualism, Language Development, Receiver Language, Expressive Language