The role of exposure on school-aged bilingual language abilities – it depends on what you measure

Abstract

ABSTRACT Few studies have focused on bilingual language development in school-aged simultaneous bilingual children. The current study tackles this gap in the literature by examining the influence of language exposure on the development of both languages in school-aged simultaneous bilingual living in additive bilingual contexts. The language abilities of 19 school-aged simultaneous bilingual children were assessed using standardised language measures in French. Their amount of language exposure was also measured using a parent questionnaire. No correlation was found between language abilities in French and exposure to French. Results did, however, show that most of the children who received as little as 20% of their lifetime exposure to French, obtained scores within the average range on all of the measures. Additionally, children who were exposed to both of their languages on a daily basis were more likely to have better performances than their peers who used one of their languages less frequently. This effect was observed even though children in the former group received less exposure to their strongest language than children who were not exposed to both of their languages daily. Therefore, while exposure is important, other factors may have a positive influence on simultaneous bilinguals’ language proficiency levels.