First NativeLiving language
The language works in full — for routines, feelings and thought.
- Tells stories, argues, makes jokes
- Can explain what upset them, and why
- Chats freely with grandparents about their life
The First Native Scale
Each stage is defined by observable behaviour — what the child actually does with the language — rather than by test scores alone. Parent quotes are drawn from real diagnostic sessions (translated from Russian; names changed).
The language works in full — for routines, feelings and thought.
"We only speak our language at home" — but it has narrowed to household routine. The language of feelings is already going.
"Getting anything out of her is very hard. Very hard."mother of Olivia, 5 · UK
Understands everything — but has stopped answering in the first language. The language has become one-directional.
"Fine, okay — with you I'll speak Russian."Richard, 6 · Germany
Every phrase in the first language has become an effort — and the child starts refusing.
"With me he doesn't want to speak Russian. It's very hard to make him."mother of Sasha, 9 · USA
The first language has become foreign: the child thinks in the majority language and translates.
"I think he already thinks in English. The rest he simply translates."mother of Alik, 6 · Canada
The stages are ordered but not fated. Movement down the scale is driven mostly by exposure and necessity: when the first language stops being needed — because the child is understood in the majority language anyway — it narrows, then goes silent, then goes passive. Movement back up is possible at every stage; in clinical practice, recovery from stages 2–3 is typically measured in months, from stages 4–5 in longer, structured work.
Two findings behind the scale's design: parents typically notice the process at stage 3–4, while it begins at stage 2; and what is lost first is not household vocabulary but the language of emotion and abstraction — the part of language on which the parent-child relationship depends.