Vilka språkliga färdigheter utvecklas genom olika metoder och aktiviteter i förskolan? Vad kan vi egentligen förvänta oss av barns språkliga förmåga under deras förskoletid? Och hur kan vi ge språkligt stöd utifrån vår kunskap om språkets struktur och barns utveckling?Begreppet "språkutvecklande arbetssätt i förskolan" innefattar tre centrala delar - språk, utveckling och arbetssätt - och i Barns språkutveckling vävs dessa samman till en helhet. Här ges insikter om språkets olika beståndsdelar, om barns språkutveckling samt om hur didaktiska metoder kan stimulera språket ur flera perspektiv. Syftet är att stödja både yrkesverksamma förskollärare och studenter att knyta relevant teori till det dagliga arbetet med barns språk och kommunikation.Språkexponeringen behöver hålla hög kvalitet och utgå från både barnets befintliga språknivå och dess fortsatta utveckling. Barns språkutveckling vänder sig till dig som vill arbeta medvetet och systematiskt med språk i förskolans praktik - med ett helhetsperspektiv på vad språk är och hur det kan främjas.

Grundbok i Logopedi är en omfattande introduktion till ämnet. De fem olika delarna består av 41 kapitel skrivna av 57 författare. Del I introducerar läsaren till logopedin som profession och ämne. Del II beskriver utvecklingsrelaterade språk- och talstörningar och därefter följer del III som handlar om förvärvade språk- och talstörningar. Del IV handlar om röststörningar och del V om ät- och sväljstörningar. Varje del börjar med ett kapitel som ger en teoretisk översikt och avslutas med två kapitel om bedömning respektive intervention. Boken är avsedd för studerande vid logopediutbildningarna och är samtidigt en både bred och djup källa till information och fortbildning om logopedi för yrkesutövare inom logopedi och andra professioner. 

Narrative ability is an important life-skill and mature narrators do not only provide information about actions and events when telling a story but also include the motivations, emotions and beliefs experienced by protagonists. It is rare for young children to spontaneously explain the beliefs of story characters but the reasons are unclear. In the current study, frog story data from 143 Swedish children aged 4–6 showed that children’s level of explicitness in conveying a fictional false belief was associated with referential narrative ability and use of mental vocabulary, but not to the ability to formulate embedded propositions. Socioeconomic status predicted level of explicitness, whereas no associations were found to age, sex or being multilingual. Future work should examine narrative practices in preschool and in the home more closely, enabling improved support to provide children with equal opportunities.

Liberalernas förslag om obligatorisk språkbedömning av tvååringar som inte är inskrivna i förskolan saknar vetenskapligt stöd. I stället behövs fler utbildade förskollärare i utsatta områden och mer samarbete mellan föräldrar och samhällets instanser, skriver sju forskare.

The main goals of this dissertation are to investigate the associations between language and executive functions, including selective auditory attention, in Swedish children aged 4–6, to examine possible links to factors relating to the child and his/her social environment, and to evaluate preschool interventions with regard to potential improvements in language and/or executive functions. Measures were obtained by combining results from behavioral tests, language samples in the form of narratives, parent and teacher ratings and a measure of selective auditory attention as brain activity. Additionally, previous work regarding the nature and direction of the association between language and executive functions is reviewed and discussed. Progress during preschool years in language and executive functioning development seem to go hand in hand, and a body of work has indicated that language and executive functions are closely associated, although directions of potential casual relationships are still unclear. For Swedish, preschool-aged children, little is known of the language–executive functions relationship and the extent to which these skills can be improved via pedagogical working methods or interventions. The first paper investigates the language–executive functions relationship and potential associations to background factors, and the second paper examines the same research questions in larger sample, adding a selective auditory attention measure. The third paper constitutes one of the first randomized controlled trials in the Swedish preschool context and investigates effects of two contrasting pedagogical interventions compared to business-as-usual. The fourth paper explores links between children’s spontaneous explanations of a fictional misunderstanding, their language skills and their executive functions. In line with previous work from other contexts, results confirm an association between children’s grammar skills and inhibition, including selective auditory attention. Children’s socioeconomic background is significantly related to language skills, executive functions and selective attention. The current results also suggest a female advantage for receptive vocabulary and morphosyntax and indicate that bi- and multilingual children perform lower than monolingual peers with regard to receptive vocabulary in the majority language, also when controlling for socioeconomic status. The preschool interventions did not lead to any gains in language, executive functions or selective attention compared to the control group. Further work is clearly needed to provide a solid evidence-base for Swedish preschool practices. Future studies should focus on identifying relevant mechanisms in order to enable early intervention targeting children at risk for lagging behind their peers already in preschool. Previous empirical work as well as theoretical suggestions regarding the nature and direction of the links between language and executive functions are divergent, which is related to a lack of consensus with regard to underlying theories and to problems with definitions and assessment. In this thesis, it is suggested that the association is intertwined and reciprocal, congruent with a view on development as dynamic and complex and in line with a theory of mutualism. Future work is needed to refine theories and to formulate testable hypotheses regarding the language–executive functions relationship.