Longitudinal Language Development of Triplets: Preliminary Results

Language development in multiples, especially twins is a topic of much discussion and controversy. Twins are often stigmatized when it comes to language acquisition and are often thought of as ‘at risk’ for language development by the general population. However, there is no consensus on how delayed twins are in comparison to singletons; the varying methodology and sample sizes make it almost impossible to come to an agreement. This research focuses on the development of narrative within the development of language in the triplet population. A set of bilingual triplets was administered the Frog Story in two languages: Russian and English. The preliminary results regarding word counts, code switching, mean length of utterance and total word counts are presented in this paper. Two children were found not to be delayed in both languages; one was only delayed in English, in terms of MLU. The code switching results were unique to each child as were the type-token counts. The presence of twin-language is discussed as well. More research is needed for more concrete results and generalizations