År 2009 startades det europeiska forskningsprojektet COST Action IS0804 med syfte att få mer kunskap om flerspråkiga barns språkutveckling och utveckla bedömningsmaterial anpassade för flerspråkiga barn. Inom COST Action fokuserar arbetsgruppen Narrative and discourse på berättelser (narrativer) som ett sätt att bedöma språk hos barn. Berättande liknar naturlig språkanvändning och anses ge en mer rättvisande bild av flerspråkiga barns förmåga än andra logopediska test. Av narrativgruppen utvecklades bedömningsmaterialet MAIN (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives). Med MAIN kan barns produktion och förståelse av berättelser undersökas på makrostrukturell nivå. Berättelsernas makrostruktur (dvs. övergripande struktur) analyseras med story grammar (SG). En hypotes är att makrostruktur inte är språkspecifik och därför kan jämföras mellan olika språk. I föreliggande studie undersöktes berättande hos 16 simultant svensk-engelskspråkiga barn (4:11- 5:8 år, medel 5:4 år) med MAIN. Resultaten jämfördes med flerspråkiga 6-7-åringar med samma språkkombination (Härdelin & Naylor, 2012). Inga signifikanta skillnader noterades mellan femåringarnas berättelser på svenska och engelska, vare sig i produktion (p= 0,084) eller förståelse (p= 0,21). Däremot fanns en signifikant skillnad mellan de äldre och de yngre barnen, både avseende produktion (p= 0,00099) och förståelse av berättelser (p= 0,0072). I barnens berättelser fanns avvikande konstruktioner med tvärspråkliga drag, såsom transfer och kodväxling. Tvärspråkliga drag bör därför inte tolkas som markörer för språkstörning, utan är en del av typisk flerspråkig utveckling. Sammanfattningsvis tycks makrostrukturella skillnader i berättande vara kopplade till ålder snarare än till språk. Studiens resultat ger en bild av femåringars prestation på MAIN, vilket inte har undersökts tidigare i en svensk kontext. Genom att jämföra resultatet med äldre barn studerades berättandeutvecklingen hos svensk-engelskspråkiga barn. / Since 2009, the EU research network COST Action IS0804 has been working towards gaining more knowledge about bilingual language acquisition in typically and atypically developing children, and towards creating assessment tools which are specifically adapted to bilingual children. Within COST Action, one working group, Narrative and discourse, focuses on narratives as a way to assess children’s language. Narratives provide more naturalistic language samples than item-based tests and are less biased against bilingual children compared to other language assessments. The Narrative and discourse group developed the assessment tool MAIN (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives). MAIN examines children’s production and comprehension of narratives on a macrostructural level (i.e. overall story structure) within the framework of story grammar (SG). One current hypothesis is that macrostructure is language independent and can therefore be compared across languages. In the current study, 16 simultaneous bilingual children (ages 4:11- 5:8, mean 5:4 years) with the language combination Swedish-English were assessed with MAIN. Their results were compared with the results of bilingual 6-7 year olds with the same language combination (Härdelin & Naylor, 2012). Results showed no significant difference regarding macrostructure between the children’s two languages, neither in production(p= 0,084) nor in comprehension (p= 0,21). However, there was a significant difference between the younger and the older children, both in production (p= 0,00099) and comprehension (p= 0,0072). Non-targetlike structures due to cross-linguistic influence,e.g. transfer and code-mixing, were noticed for both age groups. Cross-linguistic influence should thus not be mistaken for language impairment, but rather be treated as a natural part of bilingual language acquisition. In conclusion, differences in macrostructure seemed to be related to age rather than to language. The results of the current study provide insight into the performance of five-year-olds on MAIN, which has not previously been studied in a Swedish context. By comparing the results with older children, the study documents the narrative development of Swedish-English bilinguals from age 5 to 7.

Andelen flerspråkiga barn i Sverige ökar och följdaktligen så även behovet av kunskap om deras språkutveckling. Flerspråkiga barns språkutveckling har visat sig skilja sig i viss mån från den hos enspråkiga barn och då normer för flerspråkiga barns språkutveckling saknas i logopedisk verksamhet idag finns en osäkerhet kring hur deras språkutveckling bör bedömas. Föreliggande studie ingår i det internationella forskningsnätverket COST Action IS0804 och ämnar utgöra ett litet bidrag till en växande databank om flerspråkiga barns språkutveckling, i detta fall i jämförelse med enspråkiga barns språkutveckling. Studien utgår från 100 narrativer berättade av sex- och sjuåriga enspråkiga svensktalande och flerspråkiga engelsk-svensktalande barn. Narrativerna eliciterades med hjälp av två bildsekvenser från bedömningsmaterialet MAIN och samlades in inom ramen för tre tidigare magisteruppsatser i logopedi från Uppsala universitet. Resultaten visar att de flesta deltagare förankrade sina narrativer i dåtiden, att de enspråkiga deltagarna förankrade sina narrativer mer konsekvent i ett tempussystem än de flerspråkiga deltagarna, samt att de flerspråkiga deltagarna oftare skiftade tempussystem i sina engelska narrativer. Vidare gjorde alla grupper av deltagare 75-78% av sina referentintroduktioner och 80-82% av sina referentupprätthållanden på samma sätt som förväntas av vuxna. Behärskning av temporal förankring visade sig således variera beroende på språkval och en-/flerspråkighet, medan behärskning av referentiell kohesion visade sig vara mindre beroende av språkval eller en-/flerspråkighet hos svensk- och engelsk-svensktalande barn i tidig skolålder. / The number of bilingual children in Sweden is ever-increasing, and consequently the need for research into their language development is also growing. The language development of bilingual children differs to some extent from that of monolingual children, and as no norms have yet been established within speech and language pathology for bilingual children’s language development, assessment of their language skills is problematic. This study is part of the international research network COST Action IS0804 and aims to make a small contribution to its growing stock of studies on bilingual children’s language development, in this case in comparison with that of monolingual children. The study is based on 100 narratives told by six and seven-year-old monolingual Swedish-speaking children and bilingual English-Swedish-speaking children. The narratives were elicited using two sets of pictures from the assessment material MAIN and were transcribed by the authors of three earlier Master’s theses in Speech and Language Pathology from Uppsala University. The results of this study show that most of the participants anchored their narratives in the past tense, that the monolingual participants anchored their narratives more consistently in one tense than the bilingual participants, and that the bilingual participants mixed tenses more often in their English narratives. Furthermore, all the groups of participants produced 75-78% adequate referent introductions and 80-82% adequate referent maintenance. Thus, temporal anchoring varied according to the choice of language and monolingualism/bilingualism, while referential cohesion was less dependent on the choice of language or monolingualism/bilingualism among Swedish-speaking and English-Swedish-speaking children of six to seven years of age.

This collected volume gives a concise account of the most rel-evant scientific results of the COST Action IS1104 "The EU in the new complex geography of economic systems: models, tools and policy evaluation", a four-year project supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). It is divided into three parts reflecting the different perspectives under which complex spatial economic systems have been studied: (i) the Macro perspective looks at the interactions among international or regional trading partners; (ii) the Meso perspective considers the functioning of (financial, labour) markets as social network structures; and, finally, (iii) the Micro perspective focuses on the strategic choices of single firms and households. This Volume points also at open issues to be addressed in future research.

This collected volume gives a concise account of the most relevant scientific results of the COST Action IS1104 "The EU in the new complex geography of economic systems: models, tools and policy Evaluation", a four-year project supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). It is divided into three parts reflecting the different perspectives under which complex spatial economic systems have been studied: (i) the Macro perspective looks at the interactions among international or regional trading partners; (ii) the Meso perspective considers the functioning of (financial, labour) markets as social network structures; and, finally, (iii) the Micro perspective focuses on the strategic choices of single firms and households. This Volume points also at open issues to be addressed in future research.

This collected volume gives a concise account of the most relevant scientific results of the COST Action IS1104 "The EU in the new complex geography of economic systems: models, tools and policy evaluation", a four-year project supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). It is divided into three parts reflecting the different perspectives under which complex spatial economic systems have been studied: (i) the Macro perspective looks at the interactions among international or regional trading partners; (ii) the Meso perspective considers the functioning of (financial, labour) markets as social network structures; and, finally, (iii) the Micro perspective focuses on the strategic choices of single firms and households. This Volume points also at open issues to be addressed in future research.