About
A research initiative studying how children raised abroad lose — and regain — their first language.
Millions of families raise children outside the environment of their first language. The process by which those children lose the language is regular, observable and — if caught in time — largely reversible. Yet families usually notice it late, and the field lacks a shared, plain-language way to talk about where a particular child stands. First Native exists to give parents and professionals that shared language: a stage model, open methodology, and published evidence.
The scale is developed and maintained by a working group combining clinical practice and data analysis. Publications are signed by their individual authors; the scale itself is attributed to the working group as a whole.
Clinical case series are contributed by practicing speech-language therapists of the Govorika network and signed by their individual authors.
The initiative was started and is funded by the team behind Govorika, an online speech and language school for children raised abroad, and is affiliated with the MyFirstNative product family. The clinical archive described in Data & Research originates in this practice. We state this openly: the initiative's materials are written to be useful regardless of whether a family ever becomes a client of any affiliated service.
All published materials, including the scale, are licensed under CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution.
Research collaboration, media, case contributions: research@firstnative.org