Cognitive control and phonological awareness in the acquisition of second language vocabulary within the Spanish-English dual immersion context

Abstract

Studies that have examined the role of cognitive control in the acquisition of second language vocabulary in dual language learners are rare. First and second language vocabulary, phonological awareness and cognitive control were assessed in Spanish-English dual language learners (kindergarten-4th grade; half native-English and half native-Spanish) from a Spanish-English immersion program in the US. Children included were from monolingual homes and acquired their second language in school. Children’s first language vocabulary was strongly and negatively correlated with their second language vocabulary. Although performance on the cognitive control task was positively associated with first language receptive vocabulary and phonological awareness, it was children’s sound segmenting skills (i.e. elision) that uniquely predicted both their first and second language vocabulary scores. In addition, mediation regression analyses revealed that the relation between first and second language vocabulary was mediated by phonological awareness. Overall our findings highlight the importance of sound segmenting skills in second language vocabulary acquisition.