Vocabulary as a Central Link between Phonological Working Memory and Narrative Competence: Evidence from Monolingual and Bilingual Four-Year-Olds from Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds.

Phonological working memory capacity, vocabulary size, and narrative competence are important skills in children's L1 and L2 acquisition, which may vary as a function of their language background and socioeconomic status (SES). We investigated test data of 56 typically developing 4-year-old kindergarten children from two SES and two language backgrounds: 29 children (15 higher SES, 14 lower SES) were monolingual German-speaking, and 27 children (14 higher SES, 13 lower SES) were successive Turkish-German bilinguals. The tests comprised a non-word repetition task testing phonological working memory, receptive vocabulary tests (in L1 and L2), and a narrative task.