I currently teach in various courses in linguistics as well as courses within the early childhood education program at Stockholm university and the speech pathology program at the Karolinska Institute. 

 

Current research interests include individual differences in language acquisition trajectories, parent-child interaction and children's use of gesture in narrative. 

The aim of my thesis project Language and executive functions in Swedish preschoolers was to investigate relationships between linguistic skills and executive functions in children aged 4-6 and to examine potential effects of specified preschool interventions with regard to these skills. 

 

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Conveying a fictional false belief in narrative

  2022. Signe Tonér. Psychology of Language and Communication 26 (1), 242-268

  Article

  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.

  Read more about Conveying a fictional false belief in narrative

• DN Debatt. ”Obligatoriskt språktest saknar vetenskapligt stöd”

  2022. Signe Tonér (et al.). Dagens nyheter

  Article

  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.

  Read more about DN Debatt. ”Obligatoriskt språktest saknar vetenskapligt stöd”

• Language and executive functions in Swedish preschoolers

  2021. Signe Tonér (et al.).

  Thesis (Doc)

  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.

  Read more about Language and executive functions in Swedish preschoolers

• Selective Auditory Attention Associated with Language Skills but not with Executive Functions in Swedish Preschoolers

  2021. Signe Tonér, Petter Kallioinen, Francisco Lacerda. Frontiers in Psychology 12

  Article

  Associations between language and executive functions (EFs) are well-established but previous work has often focused more on EFs than on language. To further clarify the language–EF relationship, we assessed several aspects of language and EFs in 431 Swedish children aged 4–6, including selective auditory attention which was measured in an event-related potential paradigm. We also investigated potential associations to age, socioeconomic status (SES), bi-/multilingualism, sex and aspects of preschool attendance and quality. Language and EFs correlated weakly to moderately, indicating that relying on measures of vocabulary alone may overestimate the strength of the language–EF relationship. Contrary to predictions, we found no correlations between selective attention and EFs. There were however correlations between morphosyntactic accuracy and selective auditory attention which is in line with previous work and suggests a specific link between morphosyntax and the ability to suppress irrelevant stimuli. In Sweden, socioeconomic differences are rather small and preschool is universally available, but nevertheless, aspects of parental SES predicted children’s performance on all measures. Bi-/multilingual children performed lower on language also when controlling for SES, highlighting the need for interventions to reduce inequalities in educational outcomes already in preschool. A female advantage was found for both language and EFs, whereas preschool attendance and quality were not significantly related to outcome measures. Future work should include longitudinal studies of language and EF development, include children from diverse SES backgrounds and contribute toward a theoretical framework that further clarifies the language–EF relationship.

  Read more about Selective Auditory Attention Associated with Language Skills but not with Executive Functions in Swedish Preschoolers

• A randomized controlled trial to examine the effect of two teaching methods on preschool children’s language and communication, executive functions, socioemotional comprehension, and early math skills

  2019. Tove Gerholm (et al.). BMC Psychology 7

  Article

  Background

  During the preschool years, children’s development of skills like language and communication, executive functions, and socioemotional comprehension undergo dramatic development. Still, our knowledge of how these skills are enhanced is limited. The preschool contexts constitute a well-suited arena for investigating these skills and hold the potential for giving children an equal opportunity preparing for the school years to come. The present study compared two pedagogical methods in the Swedish preschool context as to their effect on language and communication, executive functions, socioemotional comprehension, and early math. The study targeted children in the age span four-to-six-year-old, with an additional focus on these children’s backgrounds in terms of socioeconomic status, age, gender, number of languages, time spent at preschool, and preschool start. An additional goal of the study was to add to prior research by aiming at disentangling the relationship between the investigated variables.

  Method

  The study constitutes a randomized controlled trial including 18 preschools and 29 preschool units, with a total of 431 children, and 98 teachers. The interventions lasted for 6 weeks, preceded by pre-testing and followed by post-testing of the children. Randomization was conducted on the level of preschool unit, to either of the two interventions or to control. The interventions consisted of a socioemotional and material learning paradigm (SEMLA) and a digitally implemented attention and math training paradigm (DIL). The preschools were further evaluated with ECERS-3. The main analysis was a series of univariate mixed regression models, where the nested structure of individuals, preschool units and preschools were modeled using random variables.

  Results

  The result of the intervention shows that neither of the two intervention paradigms had measurable effects on the targeted skills. However, there were results as to the follow-up questions, such as executive functions predicting all other variables (language and communication, socioemotional comprehension, and math). Background variables were related to each other in patterns congruent with earlier findings, such as socioeconomic status predicting outcome measures across the board. The results are discussed in relation to intervention fidelity, length of intervention, preschool quality, and the impact of background variables on children’s developmental trajectories and life prospects.

  Read more about A randomized controlled trial to examine the effect of two teaching methods on preschool children’s language and communication, executive functions, socioemotional comprehension, and early math skills

Show all publications by Signe Tonér at Stockholm University