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I bambini figli di migranti che crescono in un ambiente bilingue fin dalla nascita sono in crescente aumento nel nostro paese. Attualmente si dispone di una vasta letteratura di studi sul processo di acquisizione e sull'evoluzione del linguaggio in contesti monolingui, mentre sono ancora limitate le indagini condotte in bambini bilingui e plurilingui, in particolare in quelle situazioni di svantaggio sociale in cui spesso si trovano le famiglie migranti. Il presente contributo si propone di descrivere alcuni dei principali risultati di un progetto di ricerca finalizzato a studiare lo sviluppo delle competenze linguistiche e comunicative in bambini bilingui simultanei di età prescolare, provenienti da contesti linguistici eterogenei. Sono proposte modalità di valutazione e criteri di interpretazione che facilitano il processo di comprensione delle abilità linguistiche in questa popolazione di bambini in due differenti situazioni: quando è possibile ottenere informazioni linguistiche in entrambe le lingue e quando si hanno a disposizione informazioni limitate alla sola lingua Italiana.

Questo lavoro si propone di contribuire alla comprensione del processo di acquisizione e sviluppo lessicale e grammaticale nella lingua italiana in bambini bilingui, figli di migranti, prendendo in esame anche l'ambiente familiare in cui il bambino cresce. Inoltre, intende offrire dei suggerimenti tentando di rispondere ai quesiti che più frequentemente gli operatori dei servizi territoriali, gli educatori e le famiglie si pongono.

The purpose of this study was to assess lexical and grammar acquisition in 12 toddlers (age range 24-37 months) who are simultaneously learning Italian and Spanish using information from both languages. A parent semi-structured interview (adapted from Gutierrez-Clellen and Kreiter, 2003) was adopted to assess exposure to each language and to collect other socio-demographic data. The MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventories, standardized parent report forms in Spanish (Jackson Maldonado et al., 2003) and Italian (Caselli Stefanini and Pasqualetti, 2007), provided measures of expressive vocabulary and grammar in both languages. Data have been codify in order to analyze: i) relationships between children's lexical and grammar repertoire and amount/percentage of input in each language; ii) relationship between lexical repertoire and type of scoring (single language scoring vs. conceptual language scoring, Pearson, Fernandez and Oller, 1993); iii) proportion of different word types in each language considered; iiii) relationship between lexicon and grammar within and between languages. Results indicated that: i) the degree of exposure to each language influenced lexicon and grammar development in that language; ii) the total conceptual language scoring is in bilingual children a better measure of vocabulary size than the single language scoring; iii) proportion of different word types (social words, nouns, verbs and closed class) in each language varied with same-language vocabulary size, except for closed class; iiii) within-language lexicon-grammar associations are stronger than cross-language relationships. Theoretical and clinical implications of these aspects are discussed as contribution in the actual debate about processes underlying bilingual language acquisition and evaluation methods.

This study explores semantic and temporal relationship between spontaneous gestures and speech produced by 45 hearing children (age range 24-37 months) in a picture-naming task. Five pictures depicting objects and five pictures depicting actions which elicited more representational gestures were chosen for this analysis. Gestures produced were analyzed distinguishing between "action" gestures and "size and shape" gestures. The relationship between gesture and speech was analyzed in terms oft temporal synchrony/asynchrony, including mutual placement, and semantic match/mismatch, by using ELAN (EUDICO Linguistic Annotator). Results show that gestures and speech mainly convey similar meanings and that gestural stroke was produced synchronically with speech in the majority of cases. Onset time appears to be influenced by the item: gestural production tends to be produced before the spoken word onset in front of pictures depicting actions, but after in front of pictures depicting objects/animal. The results seem to support the Information Packaging Hypothesis (Alibali et al. 2000) where gestures and speech appear as an integrated system.

Analyses of elicited pantomime, primarily of English-speaking children, show that preschool-aged children are more likely to symbolically represent an object with gestures depicting an object's form rather than its function. In contrast, anecdotal reports of spontaneous gesture production in younger children suggest that children use multiple representational techniques. This study examined the spontaneous gestures of sixty-four 2-year-old Italian children and English-speaking Canadian children, primarily from middle-class Caucasian families. The Italian children produced twice as many gestures as Canadian children in a picture-naming task but produced a similar range of representational techniques. Two-year-olds were equally likely to produce gestures depicting function as form. These data suggest young children's communicative skills are supported by a symbolic capacity that reflects contextual communicative demands.

Background: Understanding lexical abilities in infants and toddlers is important, yet no single tool can be used. Aims: To perform a validation of a new tool (known as the Picture Naming Game, or 'PiNG') for assessing lexical comprehension and production in toddlers and to obtain developmental trends for Italian children. Methods & Procedures: PiNG consists of four subtests: Noun Comprehension (NC), Noun Production (NP), Predicate Comprehension (PC) and Predicate Production (PP), each containing 20 lexical targets. It was administered to 388 children with typical development aged 19-37 months. The short form of the Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI), previously completed by parents of participants, was used for the validation of PiNG. Outcomes & Results: For the validation study, reliability, internal consistency and concurrent validity were analysed. The reliability was optimal for NC, NP and PP, and satisfactory for PC. Split-half analysis showed a fair internal consistency for all of the subtests. Concurrent validity was verified through the correlation with MB-CDI using Pearson's correlation coefficient, which was significant even after having controlled for age. To describe the developmental trends, data are provided for 1-month age intervals. The comprehension subtests showed a rapid increase at younger ages, with children reaching a plateau slightly earlier for the NC (at 30 months versus 33 months for the PC). The increase in the production subtests was gradual; PP appeared to be the most difficult subtest, administrable starting at the age of 24 months. When we analysed, as potential confounders for developmental trends, gender, parents' educational level, and the way in which the subtests were administered, no differences were found, except for a better performance for girls in the NP subtest. Conclusions & Implications: Overall, the results suggest that PiNG is suitable for children in the age range considered to evaluate language abilities. It can be used together with other tools with clinical and theoretical objectives also to describe lexical abilities in atypical populations, such as children with cognitive and/or language impairment, as well as with late-talking children. Finally, the four subtests can be administered separately or combined, which provides flexibility in clinical use, in that the individual child's linguistic and/or cognitive characteristics and level can be taken into consideration.

Upper limb gestures, as well as transitive actions (i.e. acted upon an object) when either executed or observed aVect speech. Broca’s area seems to be involved in integration between the two motor representations of arm and mouth (Bernardis and Gentilucci, Neuropsychologia, 44:178–190, 2006, Gentilucci etal., Eur J Neurosci, 19:190–202, 2004a, Neuropsychologia, 42:1554–1567, 2004b, J Cogn Neurosci, 18:1059–1074, 2006). The rele- vance of these data is in relation with the hypothesis that language evolved from manual gestures, and was gradually transformed in speech by means of a system of dual motor commands to hand and mouth (Gentilucci and Corballis, Neurosci Biobehav, Rev 30:949–960, 2006). The present study aimed to verify whether this system of integration between gestures (and transitive actions) and speech is involved also in the language development of infants. Vocalizations of infants aged between 11 and 13 months were recorded during both manipulation of objects of diVerent size and request arm gestures towards the same objects presented by the experimenter. Frequency in voice spectra increased when the infants manipulated or gestured to large objects in comparison with the same activities directed to small objects. These data suggest that intrinsic properties of an object evoking commands of manual inter- action are used to identify that object, and to communicate.