Research shows that children’s home environment (e.g., the composition of their household and the resources available in it) has an impact on children’s language development. However, this research has mostly been conducted among English speakers from the minority world and has often only considered vocabulary size. This exploratory study investigated whether home environment factors are predictive of grammar development in Afrikaans-speaking (n = 117) and English-speaking (n = 102) toddlers in South Africa. Moreover, potential differences between these two language groups were explored. Results showed that home environment factors pertaining to family stability predicted two of the three grammar scores, namely total grammar and complex phrases. Cluster analysis showed distinct patterns of home environment factors between Afrikaans and English-speaking households, illustrating the importance of measuring these factors even across samples from the same country. This study shows that children’s home environment is an interconnected system and cautions against oversimplified single-factor approaches.

中文翻译：

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家庭环境是否能预测早期语法的发展？


研究表明，儿童的家庭环境（例如，他们的家庭构成和其中的可用资源）对儿童的语言发展有影响。然而，这项研究主要是在少数民族世界的英语使用者中进行的，并且通常只考虑词汇量。这项探索性研究调查了家庭环境因素是否能预测南非荷兰语 （n = 117） 和英语 （n = 102） 幼儿的语法发展。此外，还探讨了这两个语言群体之间的潜在差异。结果表明，与家庭稳定性有关的家庭环境因素预测了三个语法分数中的两个，即总语法和复杂短语。聚类分析显示，南非荷兰语家庭和英语家庭之间的家庭环境因素模式不同，这说明了即使在同一国家的样本中也要测量这些因素的重要性。这项研究表明，儿童的家庭环境是一个相互关联的系统，并警告不要过于简化的单因素方法。