Abstract:

Children’s development in the early years is very fast and critic and language development is founded during these first years. Language delays and problems in development affect children's academic achievement and social adaptation in the following years. For this reason, it is important to determine children's language development levels and interfere in the necessary interventions on time. Early intervention and identification of their language development levels affecting other development fields and preparing training programs accordingly are extremely important for children with mental disabilities. The main purpose of the present study is, to examine the vocabulary of 5-11 year-old children with mental disabilities who are attending special education institutions and to determine the effect of age and sex on children’s vocabulary development. The study, which is in screening model, formed with a sample consisting of 80 children that are 5-11 year-old and studying in private educational institutions in the city center of Konya during the academic year 2009-2010. "Vocabulary and Language Test" which was designed by Limbosh and Wolf is used in the study to examine children’s ability to express themselves, and to assess the richness of their vocabulary. In addition to descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were used in the analysis of the data. According to research findings, it is observed that mentally retarded children knew the words fish, home, scissors, knife, hand, spoon, fork, ball, flower, umbrella more likely at most rate; and cactus, shelf, pucker, trumpet, locomotive, sailing, stopple, steer, slug, and pot more likely at the least rate regarding the objects and pictures within the Vocabulary and Language Test. While children’s vocabulary differ significantly in terms of age, no significant difference was seen regarding gender variable

Keywords: