Data & Research

The evidence base

The initiative builds on one of the largest clinical archives of heritage-language diagnostics for children — and publishes from it in aggregate, anonymized form only.

The archive

71,838diagnostic sessions
~27,500families
30+countries of residence

The archive was accumulated in the clinical practice of the initiative's partner network (online speech and language services for families raising children abroad, principally Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking). It contains structured diagnostic records of children's language across two languages: the heritage language and the language of the country of residence.

Individual-level data are never published or shared. Aggregate analyses use anonymized records only; the questionnaire calibration stream stores answer indices without names, contact data or free text.

Publications

In preparation:

  • The First Native Scale: a five-stage screening model of first language attrition in children raised abroad — methodological paper (preprint with DOI, 2026)
  • Stages of first language attrition in children abroad: aggregate evidence from 71,838 diagnostic sessions — data paper (preprint with DOI)
  • Clinical case series by practicing speech-language therapists of the working group

Preprints will be deposited on Zenodo/OSF with DOIs and listed here. Professionals interested in contributing case observations: research@firstnative.org

How to cite

The scale and site materials are published under CC BY 4.0: free to use, share and adapt with attribution.

Ivanitskaya, T., & Yevdokimov, O. (2026). The First Native Scale: five stages of first language attrition in children raised abroad. First Native. https://firstnative.org

Russian: «шкала первого языка» · Ukrainian: «шкала першої мови» · Formerly referenced as "Govorika scale" in early materials.