Language Development In Bilingual Children Research Articles

The Effects of Home Language Use on Spanish Speech Measures in Bilingual Children With Hearing Loss Who Use Cochlear Implants and Their Peers With Normal Hearing.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the amount of home language use between the primary caregiver and bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs) versus their bilingual age-matched peers with normal hearing (NH) can impact speech outcomes in the home language. Thirty-four bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking children (17 CI users and 17 with NH) between the ages of 5;3 and 7;9 (years;months) participated in this study. Independent variables were the amount of home language use with the primary caregiver and hearing status, and dependent variables were vowels and consonants correctly produced and occurrence of selected phonological processes. The amount of home language use was ascertained from surveys, and the dependent measures were based on a single-word picture elicitation task. Bilingual children with CIs who are exposed to Spanish for more than 80% of the time via their primary caregiver performed better on Spanish segmental accuracy measures than those who are exposed to Spanish from only 20% to 50% of the time, specifically on vowels (partial η2 = .31) and consonants (partial η2 = .025). Children with NH outperformed children with CIs on all accuracy measures in Spanish. Preliminary results suggest the importance of language exposure through interactions with the primary caregiver for speech development in bilingual children. Future studies should investigate strategies to facilitate home language development in bilingual children with CIs, enabling them to reach their full potential.

Effect of a Group-Based Narrative Language Training in Typically Developing Turkish-Dutch Children.

Due to the heterogeneity in language trajectories and differences in language exposure, a lot of bilingual children could use some extra support for the acquisition of the school language to reduce the risk of language problems and learning difficulties. Enhancing bilingual children's narrative abilities in the school language could be an efficient approach to advance the general school language abilities as well. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether a narrative intervention could improve both general and narrative school language abilities of typically developing bilingual (Turkish-Dutch) children. Nineteen Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (6-9.9 years) were enrolled in this single-arm early efficacy study. The intervention procedure was administered in the school language (Dutch) and based on a test-teach-retest principle with two baseline measurements. At baseline 1, the expressive, receptive, and narrative language abilities were determined. The second baseline measurement consisted of a second measurement of the narrative abilities. Subsequently, a weekly 1-h group-based intervention was implemented during 10 sessions. After the intervention phase, the expressive, receptive, and narrative language abilities were tested again. After the intervention, the children produced significantly more story structure elements compared to both baseline measurements. No significant differences were found for microstructure narrative measures. The participants had significantly higher scores on the expressive and receptive language measurements post-intervention. These findings suggest that the intervention could be an efficient approach to stimulate the second language development of bilingual children.

COVID-19 and bilingual children's home language environment: Digital media, socioeconomic status, and language status.

Input is considered crucial in bilingual children's language development. This is especially true for bilingual children's mother tongue language learning given its common reduction in input opportunities due to the dominance of one language within society, as seen in countries and regions from Wales to Singapore. Previous studies tend to focus on the quantity and quality of conventional active communication and resources (e.g., speaking and reading with parents) on bilingual children's language development, and substantially, fewer studies have explored this topic from the perspective of digital media. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the critical role of digital media in various aspects of life, including bilingual children's home language environment. Thus, to holistically understand bilingual children's daily language input patterns, it is imperative to explore both their conventional and digital media input resources. The current study focuses on English-Mandarin bilingual children in Singapore and would like to explore (1) whether their conventional and digital media language environments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) whether the societal status of a language and familial socioeconomic status (SES) would affect bilingual children's conventional and digital media input. Survey data from 162 parents of English-Mandarin bilingual preschoolers (3 to 6 years old) were used to explore the two research questions. Two online parental questionnaires were employed for data collection. One-way repeated-measures MANOVA and path models were used to address the questions. The results indicated that input patterns from nuclear family members had not been affected by COVID-19; however, the amount and frequency of conventional and digital media materials and activities increased significantly since COVID-19. Higher-SES families possessed more conventional materials and conducted conventional activities more often, while lower-SES families possessed more digital media materials. Both conventional and digital media materials and activities were richer in English than in Mandarin. Higher-SES families perceived digital media usage for learning to be of less importance than lower-SES families. The implications for early bilingual learning following COVID-19 are discussed.

Studying language development of bilingual children with the use of Sentence Repeat Exercise. Project on methodology

The aim of the presented research project is to empirically compare the procedures of the Sentence Repetition Task in Polish. The Sentence Repetition Task is designed to study the grammatical development of bilingual children. It has been shown to be a good indicator of language difficulties across languages. When performing the task, the child hears a sentence that had been pre-recorded or that is spoken aloud by the researcher and is then asked to repeat it. The presented sentences should be long enough so that they will not be simply remembered and repeated without understanding. The rationale for using Sentence Repeat Tasks is that in order to repeat a sentence, the child must first decode its meaning, interpret it, and then process the sentence and recreate it using long-term memory, which would not be possible without access to grammatical structures reflected in the given sentence. Sentence Repetition Tasks use a wide range of language processing skills. To reproduce a sentence of medium or long length, one needs to know not only the vocabulary but also the grammar. Interestingly, Sentence Repetition Tasks, although used under the same name, differ in the way they are used by researchers in various countries.

Narrative language development of Persian-English bilingual children attending an immersion preschool

Purpose: This study aimed to provide a better understanding of the language development of bilingual children who attend a Persian immersion preschool in the United States, with a specific focus on their microstructural language skills derived from a story retell task.Methods: Participants included two groups of preschoolers: 14 Persian-English bilingual children who attended a Persian immersion preschool (2- through 5-years of age) and 16 monolingual English-speaking children who attended an English-only preschool (3- through 5-years of age). Participants completed a story retell task, and their parents completed a questionnaire regarding their child’s language environment.Results: Analyses revealed that Persian-English bilingual children produced narratives that are comparable to their same-aged, English monolingual peers with regard to measures of microstructure. Furthermore, mean length of utterance in morphemes was significantly associated with parental language input, positively with Persian input, and negatively with English input.Conclusions: Findings demonstrate that Persian-English bilingual children who attend a Persian immersion preschool develop English to a level comparable to same-age English monolingual peers based on language produced during a story retell task.

Non-word repetition in bilingual children: the role of language exposure, vocabulary scores and environmental factors

ABSTRACT Assessing language development in bilingual children is challenging in geographical areas where bilinguals have different native languages. Lexical development measures are often used as a starting point to study linguistic abilities in bilingual children. Non-word repetition (NWR) has been found to be very informative in detecting variation. The present study contributes to the broader research aim of documenting bilinguals’ language skills. In a sample of 19 Italian-speaking bilingual children with different native languages, correlations among performance on an Italian-like NWR and receptive vocabulary score (Italian PPVT-R), cumulative exposure, age of first exposure to Italian, current Italian exposure, maternal education, parental concerns and vocabulary in toddlerhood (MB-CDI) were calculated. NWR performances correlated with PPVT-R and parental concerns, but not with maternal education and language exposure measures. Neither NWR scores nor PPVT-R scores were related to Italian vocabulary size in toddlerhood (MB-CDI). We integrate our results with those of others and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of administering NWR to bilingual children, and more generally how to perform early bilingual language assessments.

Early shifts in the heritage language strength: A comparison of lexical access and accuracy in bilingual and monolingual children

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:This study examines the characteristics of the child heritage language during the period of its relative dominance in early sequential bilinguals. Our objectives are twofold: to compare lexical accuracy and access in heritage and monolingual speakers across the primary school years, and to examine whether the results point to any early shifts in the heritage language strength.Design/methodology/approach:The participants are 38 Polish–English early sequential bilinguals and 24 Polish monolinguals aged 4;7–13;2, divided into four age groups. We use a new psycholinguistic tool, the Child HALA, to measure shifts in language strength by comparing lexical accuracy and access between the heritage and monolingual Polish. This picture-naming test is based on the HALA tool.Data and analysis:The data consists of accuracy and response time scores. The results are compared between the age groups and between the heritage and monolingual speakers to document any changes as a function of age and type of acquisition.Findings/conclusions:The heritage speakers achieve similar accuracy scores as the monolinguals; however, their rate of acquisition is slower. Their response time scores are lower across all age spans, which points to a slower language access. The results may suggest that the heritage language displays early shifts in its strength before a switch to a more dominant L2 between the mean age of 8–11;5.Originality:We document early changes in the heritage language strength that occur during a period of its relative dominance in bilingual children. The study employs a new psycholinguistic test applicable in the assessments of language maintenance in children.Significance/implications:The study provides insights into the heritage language maintenance during the early years of exposure to the majority language. The results may offer a greater understanding of the characteristics of the heritage language development in bilingual children.

Parents in the playground, headscarves in the school and an inspector taken hostage: exercising agency and challenging dominant deficit discourses in a multilingual pre-school in France

ABSTRACTIn France, dominant monolingual discourses and teachers’ lack of knowledge about bilingualism and second language acquisition often result in ‘French only’ policies in classrooms including in pre-school classrooms where some emergent bilingual children speak a language other than the language of schooling and very little or no French. These policies can be detrimental to emergent bilingual children's language development, identity construction and overall long-term academic success. However, teachers in multilingual classrooms also have the power to exercise their agency to support children's bilingual language development and to implement practices which empower them and their families. This paper focuses on the ways in which one pre-school teacher working with three and four year old emergent bilingual children asserted her agency in the classroom despite institutional constraints. It investigates the beliefs, experiences, aspirations and knowledge which underpinned her sense of agency, the ways in which her actions empowered the children and parents and discusses the implications of the study for initial teacher education and continuous professional development.

The Bilingual Gap in Children's Language and Emotional Development

In this paper we examine whether – conditional on other family inputs – bilingual children achieve different outcomes in language and emotional development. Our data come from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) which allows us to analyze children's language and emotional development in depth. We relax the usual assumption that the production function underpinning child development is not itself a function of the age of the child and estimate the bilingual gap in children's language and emotional development as a cumulative process that depends on current and past endowments of cognitive and non-cognitive capacity. We find that the language development of bilingual children is not significantly different to that of their monolingual peers; however, there is evidence of a positive effect of bilingualism on emotional development.

Componential Skills in Second Language Development of Bilingual Children With Specific Language Impairment

In this study, we investigated which componential skills can be distinguished in the second language (L2) development of 140 bilingual children with specific language impairment in the Netherlands, aged 6–11 years, divided into 3 age groups. L2 development was assessed by means of spoken language tasks representing different language skills organized into 4 categories based on prior research. Factor analyses were consistent with this system, identifying 4 types of componential skills included in our original assessment battery: (i) speech production/phonological memory; (ii) auditory perception/phonological conceptualization; (iii) lexical-semantic skills; and (iv) morphosyntactic skills. Structural equation modeling showed the 4 types of componential skills to be reasonably stable over time. Moreover, empirical evidence for a lexical bootstrapping effect was found in that children's syntactic development at the age of 8 years could be predicted from their level of lexical-semantic development at the age of 7 years.

The Development of Japanese Modality and the Influence of Bilingual Acquisition

This paper examines the development of Japanese modality in children's speech and the influence of bilingual acquisition. We use data collected longitudinally from six Japanese monolingual children and three Japanese-English bilingual children. We compare their speech to analyze if there are any influences during the development of Japanese modality when acquiring two languages. Our data shows that children start using a variety of Japanese modal expressions before becoming five-years-old. Bilingual children also use a variety of modal expressions; however, the frequency rate of modal forms produced by an English dominant bilingual child is much lower than with a monolingual child. The results suggest that production frequency and the adequate usage of modal expressions may be used as an indicator in evaluating bilingual children's language development and performance.

Dual language versus English-only support for bilingual children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants and hearing aids.

There is a critical need to understand better speech and language development in bilingual children learning two spoken languages who use cochlear implants (CIs) and hearing aids (HAs). The paucity of knowledge in this area poses a significant barrier to providing maximal communicative outcomes to a growing number of children who have a hearing loss (HL) and are learning multiple spoken languages. In fact, the number of bilingual individuals receiving CIs and HAs is rapidly increasing, and Hispanic children display a higher prevalence of HL than the general population of the United States. In order to serve better bilingual children with CIs and HAs, appropriate and effective therapy approaches need to be designed and tested, based on research findings. This study investigated the effects of supporting both the home language (Spanish) and the language of the majority culture (English) on language outcomes in bilingual children with HL who use CIs and HAs as compared to their bilingual peers who receive English-only support. Retrospective analyses of language measures were completed for two groups of Spanish- and English-speaking bilingual children with HL who use CIs and HAs matched on a range of demographic and socio-economic variables: those with dual-language support versus their peers with English-only support. Dependent variables included scores from the English version of the Preschool Language Scales, 4th Edition. Bilingual children who received dual-language support outperformed their peers who received English-only support at statistically significant levels as measured by Total Language and Expressive Communication as raw and language age scores. No statistically significant group differences were found on Auditory Comprehension scores. In addition to providing support in English, encouraging home language use and providing treatment support in the first language may help rather than hinder development of both English and the home language in bilingual children with HL who use CIs and HAs. In fact, dual-language support may yield better overall and expressive English language outcomes than English-only support for this population.

Maternal Depressive Symptomatology, Social Support, and Language Development of Bilingual Preschoolers From Low-Income Households.

This study examined the impact of maternal depressive symptomatology and social support on the English and Spanish language growth of young bilingual children from low-income backgrounds. It was hypothesized that maternal depression would slow children's development in both languages but that social support would buffer the negative effect. Longitudinal data were collected from 83 mothers of Puerto Rican descent and their children who were attending Head Start preschool for 2 years. The effects of maternal depressive symptomatology and social support from family and friends on receptive vocabulary and oral comprehension development in both languages were examined. Growth curve modeling revealed that maternal depressive symptomatology negatively affected Spanish receptive vocabulary development only. Maternal depression did not affect children's English receptive vocabulary or their oral comprehension in either language. Social support was not related to maternal depressive symptomatology or child language. These findings suggest that maternal depression is 1 risk factor that contributes to less robust primary language development of bilingual children from low-income households. Speech-language pathologists must (a) increase their awareness of maternal depression in order to provide families with appropriate mental health referrals and (b) consider their roles as supportive adults for children whose mothers may be depressed.

Scientific and Methodic Basis for Monitoring of Professional Readiness of the Future Teachers to Communicative Language Development of Preschool Children in a Dialogue of Cultures

The urgency of the problem under investigation is due to the need to develop innovative technologies and approaches to the professional development of students and their optimal willingness to solve the goals and objectives of bilingual education of preschool children in a dialogue of cultures and multilingualism. In this case there is a particularly acute problem of scientific and methodic support for monitoring of their readiness for communicative and language development of bilingual preschool children. The article aims at disclosing the content and theoretical basis for monitoring of professional readiness of students to communicative language development of bilingual children in the profile "Pre-school education" in the Chuvash Republic. The major approaches to the study of the problem are systematical, personal, activity, polysubject (dialogic), culturological, ethnopedagogical. Overall the results suggest the viability of the proposed scientific and methodic support for monitoring of professional readiness of students in the profile "Pre-school education." The article’s materials may be useful in identifying the professional readiness of the future teachers of pre-school education to the communicative and language development of preschool children in the educational system of higher education. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s3p50

Child healthcare nurses believe that bilingual children show slower language development, simplify screening procedures and delay referrals.

A significant number of children living in Sweden are bilingual, but how language screening is performed in this group is unknown. We investigated child healthcare nurses' perceptions of the language screening of bilingual children aged 30-36months, together with their clinical practices. An online questionnaire was completed by 863 nurses who performed language screening of bilingual children in Sweden at least once a month, corresponding to 89% of the target population. Cox regression identified predictors of the nurses' tendency to simplify the screening of bilingual children. The nurses reported a greater lack of confidence and more difficulties in interpreting screening outcomes for bilingual than monolingual children (p<0.001). Half of the nurses simplified the screening processes for bilingual children and 74% postponed referrals to speech and language services, basing these adaptations on their perceptions of the children's Swedish language skills (p<0.001). Most nurses (82%) believed that language development was slower in bilingual children, and this was the strongest predictor of simplified screening practices (RR=2.00, 95% CI 1.44-2.77). Child healthcare nurses need easily accessible information and clear guidelines on the language development of bilingual children to ensure that bilingual and monolingual children receive equitable language screening services.

Language development of bilingual children A case study in the acquisition of tense and aspect in an Italian-Indonesian child

This paper describes the development of temporal expressions in a bilingual child acquiring two typologically distinct languages: Italian and Indonesian. These languages differ from one another in the way tense and aspect are encoded and it is interesting to observe what kind of cross-linguistic influence one language system has on the other. Italian verbs are heavily inflected for person, number as well as for tense, aspect and mood, whereas, in Indonesian, the encoding of tense and aspect is lexical rather than morphological; moreover encoding is optional when the context is sufficiently clear. This means that tense and aspect in Indonesian is often marked pragmatically rather than grammatically. This paper considers the interference effects that result from simultaneously acquiring these two typologically distinct systems. Key words Child bilingualism, Italian, Indonesian, tense, aspect, cross-linguistic structures, interference.

Language development of bilingual children The acquisition of tense and aspect in an Italian-Indonesian child: A case study

This paper describes the development of temporal expressions in a bilingual child acquiring two typologically distinct languages: Italian and Indonesian. These languages differ from one another in the way tense and aspect are encoded and it is interesting to observe what kind of cross-linguistic influence one language system has on the other. Italian verbs are heavily inflected for person, number as well as for tense, aspect and mood, whereas, in Indonesian, the encoding of tense and aspect is lexical rather than morphological; moreover encoding is optional when the context is sufficiently clear. This means that tense and aspect in Indonesian is often marked pragmatically rather than grammatically. This paper considers the interference effects that result from simultaneously acquiring these two typologically distinct systems.

Development of 14 English grammatical morphemes in Spanish–English preschoolers

Previous research in the USA studying Spanish–English bilingual children's language development has largely focused on children's developing abilities in Spanish. However, relatively little research has been conducted on children's English grammatical development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the English grammatical development of bilingual (Spanish–English) Head Start children during the preschool years. The goals were to determine (a) whether there are differences in children's productions of English grammatical morphemes based on timing of English exposure and (b) which morphological structures met mastery, emerging and early emerging levels of production by bilingual children. These aims were accomplished through in-depth analyses of spontaneous language samples collected over a two-year period in Head Start. Comparisons were made between Spanish-speaking children who were exposed to English at home from birth (home English communication (HEC)) and Spanish-speaking children who were not expected to communicate in English until their entry into Head Start (school English communication (SEC)). Results indicated that children in the HEC group mastered more morphemes earlier than the children in the SEC group; however, by the end of children's second year in Head Start both groups had mastered a similar number of morphemes. Additionally, the children in both groups differed in which morphemes were mastered at the end of Head Start when compared to monolingual English-speaking children. The results of this investigation provide information to clinicians about typical English grammatical development of Spanish–English preschool children.

What you hear and what you say: language performance in Spanish–English bilinguals

Purpose. This study assesses the factors that contribute to Spanish and English language development in bilingual children. Method. Seven hundred and fifty-seven Hispanic prekindergarten and kindergarten-age children completed screening tests of semantic and morphosyntactic development in Spanish and English. Parents provided information about their occupation and education as well as their children's English and Spanish exposure. Data were analyzed using zero-inflated regression models (comprising a logistic regression component and a negative binomial or Poisson component) to explore factors that contributed to children initiating L1 and L2 performance and factors that contributed to building children's knowledge. Results. Factors that were positively associated with initiating L1 and L2 performance were language input/output, free and reduced lunch, and age. Factors associated with building knowledge included age, parent education, input/output, free and reduced lunch, and school district. Conclusion. Amount of language input is important as children begin to use a language, and amount of language output is important for adding knowledge to their language. Semantic development seemed to be driven more by input while morphosyntax development relied on both input and output. Clinicians who assess bilingual children should examine children's language output in their second language to better understand their levels of performance.

Individual Differences in the Lexical Development of French–English Bilingual Children

Abstract The large and rapidly expanding body of literature on bilingual acquisition is mostly comprised of either single-case or cross-sectional studies. While these studies have made major contributions to our understanding of bilingual children's language development, they do not allow researchers to compare and contrast results with regard to individual differences over time. This paper aims to investigate the issue of individual differences with a longitudinal group study of 13 French–English bilingual children. The main focus is lexical development. We will examine how extralinguistic factors such as gender, parental input and birth order impact on the lexical development of the children. Using quantitative (parental checklists, questionnaires) and qualitative measures (interactions with parents), we demonstrate that language exposure and parental input are closely linked to vocabulary size, amount of language mixing and cross-linguistic synonyms. The findings call for more longitudinal group studies of bilingual acquisition in order to obtain comparable results on larger populations.