Bilingual Children Research Articles

A longitudinal study of math skills in heritage bilingual children: profiles of strengths and weaknesses

A longitudinal study of math skills in heritage bilingual children: profiles of strengths and weaknesses

Screening accuracy and developmental language disorder remain stable between 2.5 and 3 years

AbstractAimThis study re‐evaluated the classification accuracy of language screening. This is because the new Swedish child health programme moved this screening from 3 to 2.5 years of age. Another aim was to investigate the stability of diagnoses between these two time points.MethodsChildren were recruited consecutively during 2016–2017 from three Child Health Services in Gävle, Sweden. Forty‐eight monolingual children (31 boys) and 93 bilingual children (38 boys) underwent language screening and a clinical examination by a speech and language pathologist at 2.5 years of age. They were re‐examined after 6 months (at 36–38 months) for clinical diagnosis.ResultsOf the 48 monolingual children, 45 retained their status at both 2.5 and 3 years of age, while three no longer met the criteria for development language disorder. Among the 93 bilingual children, 87 retained their 2.5‐year status at age 3, two no longer met the criteria, and four new cases were diagnosed. These differences were not statistically significant. All changes in screening parameters between 2.5 and 3 years were within the 95% Confidence Interval, indicating stable classification.ConclusionScreening accuracy and language status were robust between 2.5 and 3 years, providing no support for a wait‐and‐see approach.

Lost and found: Investigating a bilingual child’s L1 lexical attrition and recovery

Aims and Objectives: We examined the extent of L1 vocabulary attrition in a Korean child following her relocation to the United States at the age of 6 years 10 months, and the subsequent restoration of her L1 vocabulary upon her return to Korea 10 months later. Methodology: A picture-naming task was administered on a regular basis over a period of several months, beginning shortly after the child’s arrival in the United States. Data and Analysis: The data were analyzed to determine the child’s accuracy in producing common nouns in the L1. Findings/Conclusion: The study shows significant L1 vocabulary attrition after just 1 month, with an inability to access half of the test items after just 4 months and a drop in accuracy to 25% after 9 months. Upon return to Korea, the child’s L1 vocabulary improved rapidly, surpassing English usage within 3 weeks and reaching 82% accuracy within 6 weeks. These findings underscore the vulnerability of children to language attrition in a monolingual environment while also highlighting the remarkable resilience of their L1 skills. Originality: The study traced the child’s L1 decline and recovery in accordance with a strict timetable. By beginning measurements within a week of the child’s exposure to English following her subsequent reintroduction to Korean, the study was able to document the earliest manifestations of lexical attrition, its rapid progression, and its subsequent reversal—a pattern of decline and recovery that is rarely studied in this manner. Significance/Implications: This study contributes to the field by systematically documenting the impact on L1 vocabulary of a sudden change in linguistic environment, providing rare insights into the dynamics of lexical attrition in early bilingualism.

The Comparative Study of Bilingualism in East and Southeast Asia

The comparative study of bilingualism in East (Taiwan) and Southeast Asia (Vietnam) includes two interrelated investigations. This study provides valuable insights into the processes of language and literacy development among children from minority groups and examine patterns of language acquisition within school-age populations in bilingual communities. The research contributes to a deeper understanding of how bilingualism affects educational outcomes in these distinct cultural and linguistic contexts. Study A involved in-depth interviews with 62 Vietnamese immigrant participants and aimed to explore their language learning experiences and related issues of adaptation to Taiwanese culture. Study B, which was located in the Thái-speaking district of Bá Thước in Thanh Hóa province, involved fieldwork that primarily focused on the development of bilingual children in first grade. In the Chinese-speaking community of Taiwan, evidence suggests that immigrant parents make significant progress in the second language learning of Chinese. In turn, first generation children appear to be making progress that is parallel to that of their Chinese native-speaking peers. Similarly, in the Thái-speaking communities, progress in mastering the national language, Vietnamese, as a second language is comparable to that in Vietnamese-speaking communities (Kinh monolingual children).

Do bilinguals have an emotional advantage? An exploratory study on the interplay of language, culture and emotion

ABSTRACT Developing emotional competence during childhood is critical because it is a significant resource for building psychological well-being, social relationships and even school achievement. Language plays an important role in fostering emotional competence among monolingual children but for bilingual children, the relationship between culture, language and emotions is significantly more complex. Although bilinguals may have more emotion concepts due to their engagement in multiple languages and cultures, this potential may only materialise under specific conditions. In this study, we investigate whether ethnic minoritised bilingual children’s emotional competence (i) differs from that of majority monolingual children based on their language proficiency profile and (ii) is shaped by their exposure to the majority culture, independent of their language competencies. Using a sample of primary school children (aged 10–12; N = 924) living in Belgium, the results of our quantitative analyses suggest that being fluently bilingual is beneficial to fostering emotional competence for minoritized children. However, Belgian socialisation efforts, exposure to Dutch media and demographic proxies of the degree of cultural exposure were not significantly related to emotional competence. Our results contradict contemporary deficit views surrounding bilingualism and suggest important policy implications for educational professionals.

Parent language proficiency is a source of variance in CDI scores for bilingual children

Parent language proficiency is a source of variance in CDI scores for bilingual children

Metalinguistic awareness in L2 Italian children with a migrant background: a trade-off between cognitive advantages and syntactic vulnerabilities

Metalinguistic awareness is a domain where bilingual advantages have been reported, with bilinguals outperforming monolinguals in tasks that require separating syntactic form from semantic content, demonstrating higher selective attention, interference suppression, and inhibition skills (Adesope et al., 2010). However, these cognitive advantages may be counterbalanced by weaknesses in specific linguistic domains, such as morphosyntactic processing. This study investigates the presence of such trade-offs in a Sentence-Judgment Task adapted fromBialystok (1986)in which monolinguals and bilinguals are compared in their ability to judge syntactically well-formed and ungrammatical utterances, regardless of their meaning.We assessed 80 school-aged children, including 36 Italian monolinguals and 44 bilinguals with Italian as a second language, using a task that involved 48 sentences varying in syntactic accuracy and semantic congruency across four conditions. Results from mixed-effects logistic regressions indicated that while both groups performed similarly when judging grammatical and semantically plausible sentences, bilinguals showed superior skills in evaluating syntactically correct but semantically anomalous sentences. Conversely, they underperformed in detecting grammatically incorrect but semantically plausible sentences, highlighting weaker morphosyntactic processing. These findings thussupportthe trade-off hypothesis (Leivada et al., 2023), revealing that while bilinguals display cognitive advantages in metalinguistic awareness, they also may face challenges in linguistic domains. Importantly, this study addressed bilingual children with a migrant backgrounds, a population less studied and potentially more vulnerable, ultimately underscoring the importance of maintaining the home language and providing rich, high-quality input to enhance both their cognitive and linguistic development.

Acceleration in multilingual children: the case of French

ABSTRACT The acquisition of the null-subject property has received much attention. Languages differ as to whether they allow (pronominal) subjects to be unexpressed. French is generally assumed to be a language not allowing null-subjects, while languages like Italian and European Portuguese are treated as null-subject languages. The present study locates these language types within the null-argument hierarchy. This hierarchy “emerges” through the interaction of (non-language specific) cognitive strategies and linguistic features. In such a hierarchy, Italian and European Portuguese are less marked than French. The study of the longitudinal data of three Italian/Portuguese-French bilingual children between the age of 1;0 to 5;0 shows that bilingual children can reach the French target grammar more quickly than monolingual French-speaking children, even if they have a “weak” language. The children are accelerated with respect to (pronominal) subject realizations and target-like inflection of finite verbs. The findings indicate that bilingual children are not statistical learners, but they can rely on prior knowledge attained in their respective other, radically different, and less marked language. Consequently, educational programs with a focus on multilingualism (like pedagogical translanguaging) which aim to activate prior linguistic knowledge can be effective to compensate for disadvantages related to critical periods.

재외동포 다문화가정 부모와 자녀의 언어·문화 정체의식 발달 연구 -프랑스 거주 한-불 가정 이중언어 교육과 정체성 함양을 중심으로-

This study used qualitative research methods to analyze the practical aspects of bilingual education and the processes of linguistic and cultural identity formation among the second generation of Korean-French multicultural families settled in France through international marriage. The findings are as follows: First, children's acquisition of bilingualism is influenced by their parents' attitudes toward bilingual education, with the French father's role having a greater impact on a family's linguistic balance than the Korean mother's. These findings highlight how parents' linguistic roles affect the dynamics of culture and language within a family, necessitating a reconsideration of bilingual education. Second, the challenges of bilingual education include setting a standard for bilingualism, addressing issues related to language mixing, and managing differences in the status of languages. Third, the correlation between bilingualism and identity formation suggests that when an individual's linguistic identity and cultural belonging are harmoniously integrated, a stronger sense of identity emerges. Additionally, the linguistic and cultural challenges faced by bilingual children and the process of overcoming those challenges are integral to their identity formation process. This research offers valuable insights into bilingual education for children from multicultural families and their cultural identity development, addressing the relatively insufficient studies on the complex identity issues faced by children of multicultural families living abroad.

Beyond Monolingual Norms: Analyzing the Complexity of Greek-Turkish Bilingual Children’s Written Narratives

This research explores the written narratives of Greek-Turkish bilingual and Greek monolingual children, focusing on their retelling abilities. We analyze both the macrostructure and microstructure of their narratives, utilizing the story-grammar model for the macrostructure analysis and examining lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, spelling accuracy, connectives, and word stressing for the microstructure assessment. We also examine correlations with contextual factors, including home and schooling input. Thirty-six children, comprising an equal number of bilinguals and monolinguals, participate in a picture narrative task (retelling mode). Our findings indicate that while bilingual children exhibit proficiency in constructing the story-grammar comparable to their monolingual counterparts, notable differences emerge in the microstructure of their narratives. Specifically, bilingual children produce shorter narratives. They also demonstrate lower lexical and noun diversity, syntactic complexity, and spelling accuracy (in inflectional suffixes) compared to monolingual children. These observed differences in the microstructure imply a potential trade-off between establishing the core story schema and elaborating on narrative details in bilingual narratives. Additionally, our study identifies early literacy practices (i.e., print exposure in preschool years) and current literacy practices (literacy habits outside the school setting) as predicting differently aspects of the microstructure in each group, further enhancing our understanding of how bilingualism influences narrative development. This underscores the importance of examining both the macrostructure, microstructure, and contextual factors for a comprehensive understanding of narrative development in bilingual and monolingual children.

Developing automaticity in neural speech discrimination in typically developing bilingual Italian-German and monolingual German children.

Many studies have shown that input in more than one language influences children's phonemic development. In this study, we examined the neural processes supporting perception of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in bilingual Italian-German children and their monolingual German peers. While German contrasts short-lag and long-lag, Italian contrasts short-lag and voicing lead. We examined whether bilinguals' phonetic/phonological systems for the two languages develop independently or whether they influence each other, and what role language input plays in the formation of phonetic/phonological categories. Forty five-year-old children (16 monolingual German, 24 bilingual Italian-German) were tested in an oddball design expected to elicit a neural Mismatch Response (MMR). The stimuli were bilabial stop VOT contrasts with the short-lag stop, common to both languages, as the standard. Four deviant VOTs were selected: 92 ms and 36 ms lag for German; 112 ms and 36 ms voicing lead for Italian. Bilingual children's language background was assessed using a caregiver questionnaire. Italian-German bilingual 5-year-old children and German monolingual controls showed similar MMRs to German long-lag and Italian voicing lead VOT, except for the 36 ms long-lag deviant; this acoustically difficult distinction did not elicit a robust negative MMR in the bilingual children. The lack of a difference between the bilinguals and monolinguals for voicing lead suggests that the amount of input in Italian for the bilinguals was not sufficient to lead to an advantage compared to the monolingual German children. Alternatively, the finding could indicate that voicing lead is easier to discriminate than voicing lag.

Bilingual Children Demonstrate Variation Within Shared Narrative Macrostructure.

We investigate the relationship between narrative macrostructure, current language exposure, and microstructure in second-grade Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States. Macrostructure knowledge has been claimed to be shared across languages in multilingual individuals. We examine the role of current language exposure and microstructure on macrostructure and how individual children organize their stories in English and Spanish. We use sociocultural theory to investigate differences in the macrostructural elements children choose to include in their stories by language. Using existing data, we used a two-sample t-test to compare average macrostructure and microstructure performance in English and Spanish in addition to performance on subcomponents of macrostructure. A correlational analysis was used to compare narrative performance in both languages. We used regression analysis to investigate to what extent current language exposure and microstructure influenced the macrostructure of 62 Spanish-English bilingual second graders' stories. Children used more words and a greater variety of words in Spanish compared to English. However, they demonstrated comparable use of overall macrostructure across languages, in addition to variation in what macrostructure subcomponents they use by language of story elicitation. No statistically significant relationship was found between current language exposure and macrostructure, except for Spanish story structure. Correlational analysis revealed a significant relationship between macrostructure performance in English and Spanish. A significant relationship was found within languages between microstructure and macrostructure and across languages between Spanish microstructure and English internal state terms. Findings are consistent with extant literature that claims macrostructure is shared across languages. Children require lexical diversity across languages to express their ideas organized within macrostructural elements. Although bilingual children tell comparably complex stories, they may be making culturally and linguistically specific decisions about what macrostructure components to include in their stories.

From childhood to adolescence: the growth of narrative macrostructure in heritage bilingual English speakers

ABSTRACT Narratives are crucial for investigating children’s spontaneous language, offering insights into linguistic changes from early childhood to adolescence. Despite the known improvement in narrative skills with age, research focusing on bilingual children older than 8 is sparse. This study explores narrative macrostructure, episodic complexity, and internal state terms expressing feelings and thoughts among bilingual children in preschool, primary, and secondary school, focusing on English as a heritage language. Narratives were elicited from fifty-nine English-Hebrew bilinguals aged 5–14, divided into three age-groups, using Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (Gagarina, N., D. Klop, S. Kunnari, K. Tantele, T. Välimaa, I. Balcˇiūnienė, U. Bohnacker, and J. Walters. 2014. “MAIN: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives.” ZAS Papers in Linguistics 56:1–156), with language exposure data collected from parent questionnaires. Analyses of story grammar elements and episodic complexity revealed significant age-related differences in narrative macrostructure, with older children demonstrating more complex and coherent narratives. The length of exposure to the societal language did not significantly predict narrative outcomes, suggesting that narrative quality is not solely dependent on societal language exposure duration. This study provides valuable baseline data for typical narrative development in bilinguals and could aid in identifying Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in bilingual populations.

Leveraging AI Tools for Discourse Analysis in Early Childhood Bilingual Education: Enhancing Language Development

The implementation of AI tools in education has become increasingly popular and brought transformative potential, particularly in the field of language education because of its powerful functions on designing immersive and personalized activities and offering real-time feedback. This study explores the role of AI tools in discourse analysis and the impact on enhancing bilingual skills among early childhood students. It investigates two key questions: (1) How do AI tools impact young childrens bilingual skills in early childhood classrooms? (2) How can discourse analysis of AI tools assist educators with bilingual teaching? A qualitative case study, including an in-depth interview with a bilingual educator, reveals insights into the effectiveness of AI tools in promoting bilingual language acquisition and engaging young learners in meaningful and enjoyable learning environment. Furthermore, the discourse analysis of AI tools offers immediate, actionable insights on each students academic performance, helping educators better understand the language learning process and the specific challenges students face. However, considerations and challenges of AI in education, such as privacy risks and misuse, still need to be considered. The findings of this study bridge the gap and highlight the potential for discourse analysis of AI tools in early childhood bilingual education. Further study can focus on exploring other AI tools in bilingual education and conducting long-term research with a large example size.

We don’t have a family language policy: exploring overt and covert family language policy planning styles

ABSTRACT Family language policy (FLP) is a key focus of immigrant families, as parents are considered to play a vital role in children’s bilingual language development. Nevertheless, many parents report that they do not have an FLP. Accordingly, their FLP planning style is unplanned and spontaneous. This study compares families’ FLP planning styles (overt vs. covert). Data was collected via questionnaires from parents and their English-Hebrew bilingual children (n = 82). Children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary of both languages were assessed to explore the impact of FLP planning style. Results confirm that families present with a desire for proficient outcomes in both languages. However, families with an overt planning style present with more pro-heritage language policies (e.g. promoting English use with siblings). Those with a covert planning style lean towards pro-societal language policies and children may be allowed to speak any language at home. Differences in FLP planning did not significantly impact ratings of home language use or children’s vocabulary. The perceived value of English as a global language may be partially responsible for the findings. The study confirms that although there are many effective ways to raise a bilingual child, FLP planning has implications for the bilingual language learning environment.

Language choice and code-mixing in a longitudinal study of an Estonian-English bilingual child

The input that bilingual children receive influences their language proportions, language development, and code-mixing. Most studies on these topics have included early bilinguals whose input proportions undergo large changes in early childhood and whose parents use the one-parent-one-language family language policy. This paper examines the input-output proportions of an Estonian-English bilingual child over a period of 2.5 years (2;3-5;01) using recorded spontaneous speech from a situation where the input language proportions did not change and where the family language policy was different from the one-parent-one-language policy that is presented in most studies: the family rotated the language they all spoke by the day of the week. Additionally, the child’s code-mixing rate and her MLU scores are investigated to provide an overview of these factors in an unstudied input situation. Lastly, it is analyzed whether code-mixing by older siblings influences the code-mixing rate of the younger sibling. The results indicate that in the early phases of language development the child uses all the linguistic resources available to her, and as her language develops, she responds more in the language of the conversation and code-mixes less. However, there is also a period where the child unexpectedly almost stops speaking in Estonian regardless of the unchanged input. The data shows that code-mixed utterances are the longest, hence supporting previous research findings and indicating that code-mixing is a tool that helps the child communicate better. Code-mixing by siblings does not show any signs of affecting the younger sibling’s code-mixing rate, though a more thorough analysis is necessary. Hence, the results indicate the importance of input and shed light on input effects in bilingual language acquisition in an understudied input situation.

Socioeconomic status, linguistic skills and language background differentially relate to preschoolers' emotional and behavioural profile.

Proximal and distal factors interact to shape children's development and well-being. The present study aimed to examine socioeconomic status (SES), linguistic skills, and language background as concurrent predictors of socio-emotional and behavioural outcomes in heritage bilingual and monolingual children attending preschool. Parents of 1810 children (mean age = 63.42 months ± 7.36), attending preschool in Italy, completed the Four Factor Index of SES and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Teachers (n = 99) completed a questionnaire on children's linguistic skills and emotional and behavioural profiles. A subsample of 995 children was administered an expressive vocabulary task in Italian. Regression analyses showed that linguistic skills were the only concurrent predictor of conduct problems, as well as the dominant predictor of hyperactivity/impulsivity, peer problems, and better prosocial behaviour. SES was negatively related to ADHD traits, peer problems, and prosocial behaviour. Finally, heritage bilingualism background was associated, although not as a primary predictor, with increased emotional problems, peer relationship problems, and lower teacher-rated emotional and behavioural skills. However, it was the main factor positively associated with prosocial behaviour. The implications of these findings for research in this area and for educational policy are discussed, highlighting the need for a multidimensional perspective that includes linguistic skills and SES in the assessment of children's emotional and behavioural outcomes.

A Parent’s Multimodal Support to Bilingual Child’s Reading: A Case Study of Korean Immigrant Family

ABSTRACT Shared reading is a practice for promoting children’s literacy that parents may utilize at home. In particular, multimodal interactions between a parent and a child can play a role in fostering bilingual children’s reading experiences. This qualitative case study explores how a Korean bilingual mother multimodally supports her child’s shared reading practices. Data sources include an online survey, a monthly reading log, two home visit video observations, and a parent interview. Four multimodal cues are classified throughout the reading: pointing, hand gestures, nodding, and audio language. The three emerging themes of the parent’s nonverbal language in support of the child’s literacy practices include assisting in guessing vocabulary and meaning, drawing attention, and encouraging confidence. The implications of the study are discussed with regards to better promoting a home literacy environment, along with the open communication of relevant messages to parents and educators to offer more support for bilingual students.

Identifying bilingual reference profiles: a cluster-analysis approach to reference production among Greek–Italian bilingual children

Abstract Empirical studies on bilingual children’s reference production have often focussed on comparisons with monolingual peers. In this study, we introduce the concept of ‘reference profiles’: Speakers may exhibit similar or different behaviours in reference production, independently of whether they belong to a specific group (e.g., monolinguals or bilinguals) or whether their production adheres to some norm. Thirty-seven Greek–Italian bilingual children (Mage = 9;4, range 7;10–11;6) performed narrative retelling tasks in both of their languages, as well as vocabulary tasks and various cognitive tasks. The results show that the children had a good mastery of reference (i.e., appropriately using null pronouns, full pronouns or full nouns) in both of their languages. Using cluster analyses, we identified two distinct reference profiles. Further investigation showed that these profiles differed in both their sustained attention and in the use of overspecified referring expressions in contexts where reference to the same referent was maintained. These results are interpreted in light of current cognitive theories of (bilingual) reference processing and emphasise the potential of reference profiles for the study of other domains beyond bilingual reference production.

Neighbourhood Density in Spoken Word Recognition: An Eye-Tracking Study

Bilingual acquisition research has so far focused on comparisons with monolingual children in terms of linguistic features, performance on standardised tests, input, etc. In contrast, new methodologies, such as eye-tracking, can offer a more detailed understanding of the way bilinguals use both language systems. Eye fixations provide evidence of online processing. This study investigates spoken word recognition in children and adults. Word retrieval is affected by the number of words that minimally differ from the target (neighbourhood). Previous research found that only bilingual adults activated a similar-sounding competitor from the other language. As children have been found to be sensitive to neighbourhood density from quite early in previous research, similar results might be expected. This study includes 56 subjects (11 German–English bilingual and 12 English monolingual children, aged 8; 21 English monolingual and 12 German–English bilingual adults). The subjects’ online processing of competing items for high- and low-density targets was compared. The results confirm that neighbourhood density affects word recognition in adults and children. The bilingual children activated same-language competitors as well as similar-sounding competitors from the other language. Adults and children differed in terms of latencies, and the monolinguals were more accurate than the bilingual subjects.