Language comes first: Measuring Language Development in the Early Years

The project "Language comes first: Measuring Language Development in the Early Years" is the first project of a large sample of Albanian-speaking children and their communicative development before 3 years of age. This project is funded by Agjencia Kombëtare e Kërkimit Shkencor dhe Inovacionit (https://nasri.gov.al/) in Albania and from Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë (https://akad.gov.al/).

It aims to understand early vocabulary and grammar development as well as how the developmental trajectories of these interact with various demographic and sociolinguistic characteristics. The final goal is the design of a tool which will be used in clinical, educational, and research contexts with Albanian-speaking children not just in Albania, but also Kosovo, North Macedonia and other diaspora communities around the world.

Our collaborators in this project include colleagues from University of Tirana, University of Medicine in Tirana, Technical University of Kaiserslautern, University of Edinburgh, Directorate of Kindergardens and Daycares at Municipality of Tirana, and other similar directorates in different municipalities around Albania.