Language Profiles Research Articles

The Role of Parental Language Profile and Home Linguistic Environment in Shaping Teenagers' Multilingual Identity

In the multilingual context of Norway, language policy at the macro level supports the development of multilingualism. At the meso level, parental language beliefs and ideologies and language practices in interactions among family members potentially play a critical role in learners’ experience of learning different languages and their multilingual identity. Drawing on Sims et al. (2016) and Spolsky (2012), this qualitative case study investigated parental language profiles, parents’ language ideologies and reported practices at home, and the potential impact these have on their children’s language choices, attitudes toward learning languages and the development of multilingual identity. The data were collected through an adapted version of the Ungspråk questionnaire (Haukås et al., 2021) from teenagers and interviews with parents and teenagers in three families with and without immigration backgrounds in Norway. We first analyzed the data using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2006). Thereafter, the analysis was shared with the families to confirm the researchers’ understanding and acknowledge participants’ rights and voices. The findings of the study suggest that parental language profiles, their language beliefs, and home linguistic environment likely have a direct impact on teenagers’ language learning experience, views on multilingualism, and multilingual identities.

The dynamic influence of language-switching contexts on domain-general cognitive control: An EEG study.

In everyday conversation, bilingual individuals switch between their languages not only in reaction to monolinguals with different language profiles but also voluntarily and naturally. However, whether and how various switching contexts dynamically modulate domain-general cognitive control is still unclear. Using a cross-task paradigm in which a flanker task was interleaved with a language-switching task trial-by-trial, the present study examined the performance of unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals on a flanker task in forced, voluntary, and natural switching contexts. The cross-domain interaction on the P3 component revealed an atypical flanker effect in forced switching contexts only, and the P3 amplitude of incongruent trials in forced switching contexts was smaller than in both natural and voluntary switching contexts. Furthermore, robust brain-brain and brain-behavior relationships between language control and domain-general control emerged in the forced switching context only. Altogether, our findings support the dynamic adaptation of language control to cognitive control and highlight the importance of different types of switching contexts.

An Exploratory Study of Yes-No Question Intonation in Bilingual Labourdin French

Despite the growing interest in the study of intonation in bilingual regions in France, the case of Basque French remains under-investigated. Previous research on yes-no questions in standard French has shown that rising contours are the prototypical realization, while bilingual varieties in contact with Corsican or Occitan also seem to allow falling intonation to different extents. To investigate the case of Basque French, data from 11 Basque-French bilinguals from Labourd were considered. Participants completed a contextualized reading task and the Bilingual Language Profile questionnaire, which was used to examine their linguistic profile and language dominance. The results showed that rising intonation predominated (90%), presenting two main realizations: A low rise (L+H* H%) and a high rise ((¡)H* H%). Falling contours, in turn, appeared in only 10% of the data. In a preliminary consideration of these results by language dominance group, low rising contours were found to be more common among Basque-dominant participants, while falling ones appeared more often among French-dominant participants. While surprising, this result could, at least partly, stem from the participants’ personal experiences with bilingualism and their contact with other varieties of Basque. We thus conclude that, for the most part, Basque Labourdin French resembles standard French intonation. The higher prevalence of falling intonation among French-dominant speakers, however, calls for future research.

Language Dominance in the Input and Use Patterns of Cameroon’s Special Bilingual Students

This paper examines dominance in the language input and use patterns of students of Cameroon’s Special Bilingual Education Programme (SBEP). The participants were 373 bilingual students from 10 schools set in French-speaking Cameroon, who submitted self-ratings via an adapted version of the Bilingual Language Profile questionnaire by Birdsong, Gertken and Amengual (2012). The data were analysed using the subtraction method to determine dominance. The results showed a consistent pattern of OL1-dominance for all the three domains considered under language input (viz. listening, reading, and watch time), but a more contrasted pattern for language use, as the respondents were found to be French-dominant (or slightly OL1-dominant to balanced) in the outer circle of relationships (circle of friends and school environment) and OL1-dominant in the inner circle (self-talk and family circle). The findings of this study suggest that individual language use is more significantly impacted by societal dominance than language input is, most likely because the latter is less constrained by relationships and offers a greater possibility of choice. They equally suggest that there is a directionality in the influence of societal dominance, with a decreasing effect from the public to the private sphere. Lastly, the study underscores the powerful negative impact the lack of official recognition can have on the maintenance of local ethnic languages in a multilingual context.

Language Profiles of School-Age Children With 16p11.2 Copy Number Variants in a Clinically Ascertained Cohort.

Individuals with proximal 16p11.2 copy number variants (CNVs), either deletions (16p11.2DS) or duplications (16p11.2Dup), are predisposed to neurodevelopmental difficulties and disorders, such as language disorders, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorder. The purpose of the current study was to characterize language profiles of school-age children with proximal 16p11.2 CNVs, in relation to the normative sample and unaffected siblings of children with 16p11.2DS. Standardized language tests were conducted in 33 school-age children with BP4-BP5 16p11.2 CNVs and eight unaffected siblings of children with 16p11.2DS to evaluate language production and comprehension skills across various language domains. A standardized intelligence test was also administered, and parents completed a standardized questionnaire to assess autistic traits. Language profiles were compared across 16p11.2 CNVs and intrafamilial pairs. The influence of nonverbal intelligence and autistic traits on language outcomes was investigated. No significant differences were found between children with 16p11.2DS and those with 16p11.2Dup, although both groups exhibited significantly poorer language skills compared to the normative sample and unaffected siblings of children with 16p11.2DS. Severe language deficits were identified in 70% of individuals with 16p11.2 CNVs across all language subdomains, with significantly better receptive vocabulary skills than overall receptive language abilities. In children with 16p11.2DS, expressive language deficits were more pronounced than receptive deficits. In contrast, only in children with 16p11.2Dup did nonverbal intelligence influence their language outcomes. The current study contributes to the deeper understanding of language profiles in 16p11.2 CNVs in a clinically ascertained cohort, indicating generalized deficits across multiple language domains, rather than a syndrome-specific pattern targeting specific subdomains. The findings underscore the importance of early diagnosis, targeted therapy, and monitoring of language skills in children with 16p11.2 CNVs. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.27228702.

Language, Theory of Mind and Cognitive skills in Arabic-speaking children with and without autism: Evidence from network and cluster analyses

IntroductionAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social interactions, social communication, and repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior. Previous studies have reported mixed findings regarding the links between language (i.e., phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon and pragmatics), theory of mind (ToM), executive functions (EFs), and central coherence measures in children with ASD. MethodsA total of 163 Palestinian-Arabic-speaking children aged 4-11 participated: 76 with ASD and 87 with typical language development (TLD). The children`s phonological, morphosyntactic, lexical, and pragmatic skills and verbal and non-verbal ToM abilities were evaluated. Additionally, cognitive assessments included non-verbal IQ, EF, and central coherence processing. ResultsGroup-level results showed that children with ASD scored lower than their TLD peers in all measures. Network analysis revealed robust interconnections between language, ToM, and cognitive skills in both groups. In autistic children, language was a central node, with pragmatics prevailing over morphosyntax and lexicon, while age was central in the TLD group. Cluster analysis identified four language clusters within the ASD group, demonstrating dissociations between language domains: (1) high performance across all domains, (2) moderate performance in phonology and morphosyntax with low pragmatic abilities, (3) moderate performance in phonology and lexicon with low morphosyntax and pragmatics, and (4) moderate phonology and lexicon with extremely poor morphosyntax and pragmatics. Autistic children with enhanced language abilities performed better in verbal and non-verbal ToM and EF tasks. ConclusionsOur findings underscore the variability in language, ToM, and cognitive profiles of autistic children, showing dissociation within and between different domains in some autistic children. These results offer insights for applied interventions.

EMI and DMI, an elitist language learning approach? An investigation of students’ socio-economic and language profiles

ABSTRACT Internationalisation of higher education has really taken off in recent decades, with universities increasingly organising all or parts of their study programmes in a language other than their traditional language of instruction. Usually, that language is English, which is referred to as English Medium Instruction (EMI), but there are also programmes in other foreign languages, such as Dutch Medium Instruction (DMI) in French-speaking Belgium. Previous research links EMI with access inequity. This study investigates whether this inequity also exists in French-speaking Belgium and whether it extends to DMI by examining the socio-economic and language profiles of students in unilingual programmes versus multilingual programmes with DMI and/or EMI courses. An online questionnaire was administered to undergraduate law, political sciences, and economics & management students at a French-speaking university in Belgium. The results indicate that multilingual programmes attract students of higher socio-economic status (SES) and those who benefited from Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) school education, extracurricular activities or more classes in Dutch or English at secondary level. Taken together, these findings suggest that multilingual higher education with DMI/EMI in French-speaking Belgium is closely linked with access inequity. The article ends with suggestions for institutions offering or considering multilingual higher education.

Reengineering Web applications into pervasive information systems

In today’s mobile-driven world, organizations face the challenge of adapting legacy Web applications to pervasive information systems, such as mobile applications, ensuring seamless accessibility across devices. This paper presents a systematic, three-phase approach to reengineering Web applications into mobile applications: Reverse-engineering, Transformation, and Forward-engineering. In the reverse-engineering phase, high-level conceptual models of the Web application are generated to capture its architecture and functionality. During the transformation phase, these models are refined using Unified Modeling Language (UML) profiles to align with the requirements of mobile systems. The forward-engineering phase utilizes the Acceleo technology, along with predefined mapping rules and code patterns, to automate the generation of mobile application code. A case study is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of this framework, revealing a significant reduction in manual effort throughout the reengineering process. This approach offers a scalable and efficient solution for transforming Web applications into mobile applications, contributing to advancements in model-driven engineering and software reengineering.

Opportunities and lessons learned from a retrospective analysis of administrative billing data to understand the language profile of high-risk close contacts of COVID-19 cases in Ontario.

During a public health emergency, it is vital to have access to data sources that can identify communities disproportionately affected and to ensure public health communications are meeting the needs of diverse populations. To explore how administrative billing data for language interpretation services could be used as an additional source of information to understand the language profile of high-risk close contacts of COVID-19 cases. A retrospective descriptive analysis was conducted using administrative billing data from Public Health Ontario's Contact Tracing Initiative from May 2020 to February 2022. Data from the Contact Tracing Initiative were utilized to identify drivers that could have influenced patterns in language interpretation requests. Trends were compared with community language profiles using 2021 Canadian Census data. Interpreters responded to 2,604 requests across 38,518 interpretation minutes and provided information in 50 different languages. The top five requested languages were French, Arabic, Spanish, Punjabi and Mandarin. Five distinct periods were identified of different language predominance including Spanish in spring/summer 2020, French in summer/fall 2020 and Arabic in spring 2021. Overall, these trends aligned with the language profile of health units contributing most submissions. Public health agencies could benefit from using existing secondary data sources to understand the language interpretation needs of their communities. This study also demonstrated how existing data sources could be used to help assess how communities are being disproportionately affected by public health emergencies and how this might change over time.

Adynamic spoken language in corpus callosum dysgenesis

Corpus callosum dysgenesis (CCD) is a congenital brain malformation that occurs when the development of the corpus callosum is disrupted, either partially or completely. The cognitive outcomes in individuals with CCD vary greatly, but generally the neuropsychological profile is characterised by slow processing speed, poor transfer of interhemispheric sensory-motor information, and impaired complex problem solving. Core language skills are often preserved in CCD, but there is some evidence that complex language may be impaired. Thus, the current study sought to examine whether spontaneous speech output was reduced in a cohort of individuals with CCD compared to age-matched controls. We further explored a series of factors that may be contributing to poor spontaneous speech in CCD, such as difficulties generating, selecting, and sequencing ideas for expression, as well as apathy and slowed processing speed. A cohort of 25 individuals with CCD and 39 neurotypical controls were enrolled in this study. Participants completed a picture description task to measure spontaneous speech output, alongside a series of cognitive and language baseline tests. Verbal and nonverbal fluency tasks gauged idea generation and sequencing, and sentence-level selection tasks measured idea selection. We found that, despite having largely intact core language skills, individuals with CCD produced significantly less spontaneous speech on the picture description task than controls. This language profile may be described as “adynamic”. Further, we found that poor spontaneous speech output in CCD was related to problems generating ideas for expression, as individuals with CCD performed below controls on the verbal and nonverbal fluency tasks. Exploratory analyses revealed that apathy and slowed processing speed may be contributing factors. Adynamia in CCD is a novel finding that may be an intervention target for improving communication skills in this population.

The repetition of passives in Mandarin-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder and Autistic children with language impairment

This study investigates the language profiles of Mandarin-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and those with Autistic Language Impairment (ALI) through their repetition of passive sentences. It examines both long and short passives, predicting worse performance for the former structures than the latter. 15 children with DLD (aged 4;0–6;3), 18 children with ALI (aged 4;7–6;0), and 22 typically developing age-matched (TDA) children (aged 4;4–5;11) repeated 10 long and 10 short passives, the latter including manner adverbs to match the long passives’ length. Unexpectedly, no clear advantage for short over long passives emerged across groups. Both children with DLD and those with ALI performed less well than their TDA peers, with children with ALI slightly outperforming those with DLD. Both groups employed non-target and simpler responses to mitigate syntactic complexity, with notable differences in strategy between children with DLD and those with ALI. The study reveals syntactic difficulties in children with DLD and ALI, with more pronounced impairment in DLD. The Edge Feature Underspecification Hypothesis may account for these challenges, suggesting that the underspecified EF [+Topic] leads to alternative strategies. Additionally, the difficulty with manner adverbs might contribute to challenges with short passives, and children with ALI showed more pragmatic errors.

ТЕХНОЛОГИЯ ДОПОЛНЕННОЙ РЕАЛЬНОСТИ В ОБУЧЕНИИ ПРОФИЛЬНОМУ АСПЕКТУ ИНОСТРАННОГО ЯЗЫКА СТУДЕНТОВ АРХИТЕКТУРНО-СТРОИТЕЛЬНОГО ВУЗА

The article analyzes teaching materials based on augmented reality technologies that help to create an authentic communicative environment, which implies active involvement of each student in learning. The content of the profile module "Construction process: from breaking the foundation to handing over the keys", introducing the activities of a civil engineer at the main stages of construction, as well as the stages of its acquisition in a group project are described; gamification elements that allow to increase students' motivation and reduce their fear of learning a foreign language are offered. The need of converging traditional methods and technologies of augmented reality, which significantly increases the effectiveness of developing foreign language profile competence of students, is determined.

The Relationship Between Cognitive Control Capacity and Language Dominance Among Malay Bilinguals

A growing number of research has suggested that bilingualism could be related to enhanced cognitive control functions (Bellegarda & Macizo, 2021), because of frequent interference suppression of the first language when a bilingual speaker chooses to speak in the second language and vice versa. Nevertheless, the relationship was not shown in some studies, which raises various questions regarding previous findings. Hence, more studies are done to explore other facets of bilingual speaker’s experience that could modulate the cognitive control functions. Accordingly, the bilingualism threshold is examined to investigate the bilingual benefits. It is suggested that bilingual benefits are not just about knowing two languages, but more so into the usage of the languages possessed. Hence, some studies claimed that balanced language dominance would have better cognitive control capacity. This is a result of the continuous practice of suppressing one language over the targeted language. Therefore, there is a need to look at how language dominance could be related to cognitive control capacity as language dominance may impact the frequency of switching as well as activation of the two languages. This study reports the findings of the relationship between cognitive control capacity and language dominance of Malay bilinguals. The participants of this study were 69 balanced bilinguals and 74 Malay-dominant bilinguals. The Bilingual Language Profile was adopted to measure the language dominance of the participants of this study. Cognitive control capacity of the participants was measured with the Stroop Task. Through a Pearson-correlation analysis, it was found that there is a significant relationship between language dominance and cognitive control capacity. Thus, the findings of this research as in line with previous literatures where language dominance of a bilingual is related to enhanced cognitive control functions.

‘‘Language profile among Arabic-speaking children with attention deficit hyperactive disorder”

BackgroundChildren with ADHD were found to have language impairment in many studies. The way they use language in their everyday life may be affected, namely, the pragmatic aspect of language. Measuring the affected parameters in all aspects of language will help to reach better rehabilitation. Thus, this study set out to observe relationships between hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention with all language domains in 30 Egyptian Arabic-speaking children with ADHD between 4 and ≤7 years old with the aim of better intervention. Children were evaluated to establish the diagnosis of ADHD and its type following the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-V criteria and the Conners’ Parent Rating Scale-Revised. Language abilities were assessed by the Pre-school Language Scale 4th edition (Arabic version), the Arabic articulation test, and the Egyptian Arabic Pragmatic Language Test. This assessment covered receptive and expressive language abilities and phonological and pragmatic skills. ResultsCompared to norms, it was found that the ADHD children who participated in this study had non-significant language delays in the parameters of the modified PLS-4 test. 70 % of the ADHD children had total pragmatic test scores below their 5th percentile, while 30 % of the children had total pragmatic test scores above their 5th percentile. 50 % of ADHD children failed to master certain sounds corresponding to their phonological age. A statistically significant negative correlation was observed between each of the inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity scores and the receptive, expressive, total language ages, and pragmatic language scores. ConclusionChildren with ADHD in this study did not show major difficulties in areas beyond what would be expected in normally developing children. Most children with ADHD in the present study had problems with pragmatic language aspects that are correlated positively to ADHD symptoms. 50 % of ADHD children failed to master certain sounds corresponding to their chronological age.

Assessing the Linguistic Capacity Across Alzheimer's Disease and Its Preclinical Stages: Evidence from Narrative Macrostructure in Elderly Speakers of Greek.

The assessment of language deficits can be valuable in the early clinical diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). The present study aims to explore whether language markers at the macrostructural level could assist with the placement of an individual across the dementia continuum employing production data from structured narratives. We administered a Picture Sequence Narrative Discourse Task to 170 speakers of Greek: young healthy controls (yHC), cognitively intact healthy elders (eHC), elder participants with subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and with AD dementia at the mild/moderate stages. Structural MRIs, medical history, neurological examination, and neuropsychological/cognitive screening determined the status of each speaker to appropriately groupthem. The data analysis revealed that the Macrostructure Index, Irrelevant Info, and Narration Density markers can track cognitive decline and AD (p < 0.001; Macrostructural Index: eHC versus AD Sensitivity 93.8%, Specificity 74.4%, MCI versus AD Sensitivity 93.8%, Specificity 66.7%; Narration Density: eHC versus AD Sensitivity 90.6%, Specificity 71.8%, MCI versus AD Sensitivity 93.8%, Specificity 66.7%). Moreover, Narrative Complexity was significantly affected for subjects with AD, Irrelevant Info increased in the narrations of speakers with MCI and AD, while Narration Length did not appear to indubitably differentiate between the cognitively intact groups and the clinical ones. Narrative Macrostructure Indices provide valuable information on the language profile of speakers with(out) intact cognition revealing subtle early signs of cognitive decline and AD suggesting that the inclusion of language-based assessment tools would facilitate the clinical process.

Reading Comprehension and Linguistic Abilities of Children with and without Specific Learning Difficulties: Theoretical and Educational Implications

The aim of the present study has been to investigate reading comprehension (RC) of children with specific learning difficulties (SLD), considering linguistic factors, such as receptive vocabulary, morphosyntax, and pragmatics (i.e., figurative language). Participants included 90 students (9–12 years old; Μyears = 10.8, SD = 0.95), 45 with SLD and 45 typically developing (TD) controls, matched on age, gender, and non-verbal cognitive ability. Results indicated that students with SLD had significantly lower performance on RC and across all linguistic measures compared to TD peers. Scores of the figurative language comprehension task predicted RC for TD children, whereas morphosyntactic ability emerged as a unique predictor of RC for SLD children. The two groups utilize distinct linguistic resources in their effort to extract meaning from written texts. The differentiated language profile of children with SLD suggests the implementation of differentiated educational assessment and intervention practices, which are discussed.

Parent-led Communication Therapy for Young Bilingual Autistic Children: A Scoping Review.

A scoping review of the literature was undertaken using JBI guidelines to map the evidence of parent-led therapy (PLT) for young autistic children (≤ 6years) raised in bilingual environments. Reviewers used Covidence to screen located sources. Sixteen papers met inclusion criteria. A strong acceleration of reports of PLT for young autistic children measured in bilingual environments was observed, with 93.8% of papers (n = 15) published since 2015. Reporting of participants' language environments (home language(s)/L1s and societal language(s)/L2s) was inconsistent. A large majority of these studies, 87.5% (n = 14) were conducted in North America or in collaboration with a North American institution. Diverse PLT programs and methodologies were identified. There is variation in demographic information collected and outcomes reported. Evidence gaps in the literature are identified and the value of undertaking systematic review on this topic is considered. This scoping review points to the necessity of further empirical research and practice that centres parents in early and specific support for autistic children raised in bilingual environments. Suggestions for improving reporting standards of language profiles are provided.

Mandarin non-interrogative wh-words distinguish between children with Developmental Language Disorder and Language-Impaired autistic children

ABSTRACT Language profile resemblance between autistic 1 1 The current paper uses “identity-first” language throughout, which is often favored by autistic individuals and their parents (Kenny et al. 2016). children who are language-impaired and children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) gives rise to misdiagnosis of the two conditions. Aiming to better understand the underlying causes of language impairments in autism language impaired (ALI) and DLD, the present study adopts a question-statement task to investigate the ability to determine the non-interrogative interpretation of Mandarin wh-words on the basis of syntactic-semantic cues and prosodic cues. The results show that both the ALI and the DLD groups have difficulty using the syntactic-semantic cues to access the non-interrogative interpretations of Mandarin wh-words. However, only the performance of the ALI group correlates with their extralinguistic cognitive ability. Furthermore, the two groups performed differently in using the prosodic cues: the DLD group scores significantly higher than the ALI group on the perception of the prosodic cues. The different linguistic profiles found in the current study suggest that ALI may not simply be a comorbidity of autism and DLD, as has often been proposed. The study’s findings also have the potential to improve diagnostic procedure and to increase accuracy of differential diagnosis in children.

Morphological and Inhibitory Skills in Monolingual and Bilingual Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder.

This study examined the language and nonverbal inhibitory control skills of Italian monolingual and bilingual typically developing (TD) preschoolers with Italian as their second language and of age-matched monolingual and bilingual peers with developmental language disorder (DLD). Four groups of preschoolers were enrolled: 30 TD Italian monolinguals, 24 TD bilinguals, 19 Italian monolinguals with DLD, and 19 bilinguals with DLD. All children were assessed in Italian on vocabulary, receptive morphosyntax, and morphological markers for DLD in the Italian language (i.e., third-person verb inflections, definite articles, third-person direct-object clitic pronouns, simple prepositions) and nonverbal inhibitory control skills. Group performance was compared using a series of one-way analyses of variance. Monolingual and bilingual children with DLD achieved significantly lower performance in all language measures compared to both TD monolingual and bilingual children. However, TD bilinguals, although comprehensively showing better language skills than monolinguals with DLD, achieved a performance closer to that of monolinguals with DLD but significantly higher than that of bilinguals with DLD. Both TD monolinguals and bilinguals showed better results than both DLD groups in inhibitory control tasks, particularly in the interference suppression task. This study provides a picture of language and inhibitory control characteristics of children with various language profiles and adds to the literature on potential markers of DLD among bilingual children. These results suggest that the assessment of nonlinguistic markers, which are associated with language impairment, could be a useful approach to better specify the diagnosis of DLD and reduce cases of misdiagnosis in the context of bilingualism.

A Note on the Language Components of Aphasia

This study investigated the specific language deficits observed in persons with aphasia through a theoretical analysis of some of the classic and more recent literature in the field. The study used a systematic search and subsequent analysis of publications related to the topic retrieved from well-known electronic databases: PubMed, PsycINFO and Web of Science. The results suggest a nuanced interaction between language components and speech production in persons with aphasia. The theoretical analysis contributes to the understanding of aphasia by highlighting the sophisticated interplay between language processes and speech in individuals affected by this neurologically based communication disorder. It draws the attention of the speech and language pathologist to the need for evidence-based diagnostic and therapeutic interventions tailored to the language profiles of persons with aphasia.