Spanish-speaking Children Research Articles

Estimations of child linguistic productivity controlling for vocabulary and sample size.

Children's use of present tense suffixes is less productive than that of their parents, after correcting for sample size and lexical knowledge, according to a recently established approach for the study of inflectional productivity. This article expands on this technique by providing precise estimates of early grammatical productivity through systematic random sampling and allowing for developmental assessment. Two cross-linguistic comparisons are given in the results of this study. Two Spanish-speaking children and their parents are compared with four English-speaking children and their parents. The second comparison examines potential differences in productivity throughout developmental stages using the same six children's speech. The findings indicate that Spanish-acquiring children are less productive than their parents while utilising the paradigm under study, but that productivity levels increase over time. In contrast, the English-speaking children's morphosyntactic production mirrors that of their parents. Although the primary focus of this research is methodological, these findings have consequences for theoretical theories arguing either rule abstraction or a restricted generalisation of early exemplars.

Towards a model of word reading acquisition in children from low income backgrounds

The present study examined a six-component theoretical model of word reading acquisition in 449 Spanish-speaking children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Measures of phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), vocabulary, letter name-sound knowledge, and parent education were obtained at the beginning of kindergarten and a measure of word reading at the end of grade 1. A path analysis was applied to test specific hypotheses. The approach revealed a conditional dependence structure between the components as follows: (1) vocabulary depends on parent education; (2) PA depends on vocabulary; (3) letter name-sound knowledge depends on PA; (4) letter name-sound knowledge explained 76% of the variance in word reading; (5) vocabulary indirectly influences word reading through PA and letter name-sound knowledge. Plausible interpretations of the results regarding early reading acquisition among children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are discussed.

Validation of Male Talker Recordings of the Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold Test and the Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test.

The purpose of this study was to validate recordings of the Spanish Pediatric Speech Recognition Threshold (SPSRT) test and Spanish Pediatric Picture Identification Test (SPPIT) for Spanish-speaking children using a native, bilingual Spanish-English male talker of Castilian peninsular dialect from Spain. Seventy native Spanish-speaking children from a variety of countries participated. Fifty-eight participants had normal hearing, and the remaining 12 had mild hearing loss in at least one ear. Male talker recordings of the SPSRT and SPPIT were administered to obtain baseline validation data. Participants listened to the stimuli and pointed to the appropriate item on the picture boards that represented the word they heard. Mean SRTs were within 5 dB of mean pure-tone averages resulting in a positive correlation. Performance-intensity functions for the SPPIT showed minimal significant differences across the three test lists, and performance increased as the sensation level increased. The male talker recordings of the SPSRT and SPPIT are valid speech perception picture-pointing assessments that can be used with Spanish-speaking children. The recordings present the Spanish target word while simultaneously presenting the English interpretation for ease of scoring.

Priming of Prepositional Phrases and Direct Objects in Spanish-Speaking Children

Purpose: The phenomenon of syntactic priming involves speakers repeating sentence structures they have recently experienced. Investigating priming can contribute to understanding of how children learn and generalize linguistic structures. This study examined the priming of two structures, direct object clitic pronouns and prepositional phrases, in Spanish-speaking children. Method: Participants were 22 typically developing monolingual Spanish-speaking children ages 4;2 (years;months)–6;3 who attended an early childhood education center in Central Mexico. For each structure, direct object clitic pronouns and prepositional phrases, children were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group heard and repeated sentences that contained the target structure, and the other heard and repeated sentences without the target structure. Participants in both groups described pictures that could be appropriately described with or without the target structure after each prime sentence. Results: Results indicated that children were not more likely to produce sentences with an object after hearing and repeating a sentence with a direct object clitic. There was, however, a tendency for children to be more likely to produce sentences with prepositional phrases after hearing and repeating a sentence with a prepositional phrase. Conclusions: Results suggest that exposure to prepositional phrases can result in increased use of this structure in novel utterances. However, exposure to pronominal direct objects does not appear to increase production of direct objects, a finding that may relate to the nature of the pronominal object in Spanish. Findings inform our understanding of how typically developing Spanish-speaking children represent these grammatical structures.

Same-different letter decision task: a study with Spanish children with dyslexia (Tarea de decisión de letras igual-diferente: un estudio con niños españoles con dislexia)

ABSTRACT It is common to see mirror errors in letters in early stages of reading due to the mirror-generalization process that allows a visual stimulus to be identified independently of its orientation. To avoid such errors, this process must be inhibited. A special case would be children with dyslexia since their difficulties with the alphabetic code may also delay the acquisition of correct letter orientation. We investigated the relationship between reversible errors in reading and dyslexia. Twenty-seven Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia (7–12 years old) and 27 chronological-age-matched controls performed a ‘same-different’ letter decision task on reversible and non-reversible letters. Results showed that all participants required more time and committed more errors in discriminating reversible letters. In addition, worse execution was observed in the dyslexic group, which seems to indicate that this group is delayed in the acquisition of correct letter orientation. Therefore, our results indicated that overcoming reading errors in mirrors depends to some extent on the reading competence of the children and the ability to inhibit the process of generalization of mirrors.

Estructura Interna y Validez del Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test Versión Niños en una Muestra Colombiana de Estudiantes de Secundaria

Introduction and objectivesSocial cognition is a broad set of processes related to interpersonal interaction, social adjustment, and a whole array of complex social behaviours. Disturbances in these processes are a key feature of many psychiatric disorders, therefore the adaptation and validation of assessment tools to measure social cognition performance are critical for correct diagnosis and treatment. One popular assessment tool is the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), which is used to measure individual ability regarding social cognition skills. Despite its remarkable popularity, to date there is no record about its psychometric features in Spanish-speaking children. Therefore, the aim of this research was to assess the internal consistency, convergent validity, and factorial structure of the RMET in children. MethodsOur sample consisted of school students (n=509; 315 males, and 194 females) from sixth to ninth grade with ages ranging from 10 to 16 years old. ResultsThe RMET has acceptable internal consistency, moderate convergent validity, and acceptable adjustment to a unidimensional factorial structure that could be improved by using a shortened version. No significant differences between sex and age groups were found, average performance scores of each test seem to be similar to those from akin cultural backgrounds (Spain or Argentina). ConclusionsThe RMET has acceptable reliability and validity and is therefore a suitable test for differentiating theory of mind skills in typically developing populations. Its psychometric properties should be investigated in clinical samples and other age groups.

Are Generics Defaults? A Study on the Interpretation of Generics and Universals in 3 Age-Groups of Spanish-Speaking Individuals

ABSTRACT This paper reports an experiment that investigates interpretive distinctions between two different expressions of generalization in Spanish. In particular, our aim was to find out when the distinction between generic statements (GS) such as Tigers have stripes and universally quantified statements (UQS) such as All tigers have stripes was acquired in Spanish-speaking children of two different age groups (4/5-year-olds and 8/9-year-olds), and then compare these results with those of adults. The starting point of this research was the semantic distinction between GS and UQS in that the former admit exceptions, unlike the latter. On the other hand, several authors have observed a Generic overgeneralization effect (GOG) consisting in allowing for UQS to be felicitous in the face of exceptions, thus proposing that this “error” stems from GS being defaults (simpler, more easily learned and processed). In the current paper we aimed to test the “Generics as Default” (GaD) hypothesis by comparing GS and UQS in three different age ranges. Our data show that, overall, the accuracy of GS is greater than the accuracy of UQS. Moreover, we also confirm a hypothesized interaction between age and NP type (GS vs UQS). Further, we present several data points that are not predicted by the GaD, including an observed decline in the accuracy of GS in the older group of children as well as in adults, and that children fail at rejecting statements that are not considered to be true generalizations.

Early Childcare and Education in a Post-Industrial Landscape: Inequalities in Proximity to Active and Relic Manufacturing in Metropolitan Providence, Rhode Island.

Children are uniquely vulnerable to environmental health risks associated with industrial contamination, and early childcare and education (ECE) facilities are important sites for potential exposure to environmental contaminants. Emerging research on historic urban industry has additionally demonstrated that urban environmental risk accumulates historically and spatially across urban landscapes. Accordingly, this study pairs cross-sectional data on licensed childcare facilities with longitudinal manufacturing site data in Providence, Rhode Island. We use these data to investigate the proximity of ECE facilities to active and relic manufacturing sites, controlling for a range of organizational- and tract-level characteristics. Results show that type of childcare facility (center-based vs. in-home) and language of instruction (Spanish vs. English) are important predictors of children's proximity to industrial lands, past and present. These findings indicate that Spanish-speaking children in Providence may experience a "double jeopardy" in the form of disproportionate legacy environmental hazards at ECE as well as at home-suggesting that the historical nature of urban industrial land use is an important mechanism of environmental inequality for young children.

Assessing Preschool Children’s Letter-Name Knowledge: Responsive Practices

In this article, the author offers recommendations for pedagogical practice based on the assessment results of uppercase letter-name knowledge among Spanish-speaking preschool children from low-income backgrounds.

Cultural Adaptation and Social Media Promotion of Healthy Eating Guides for Spanish Speakers

ObjectiveThe internet is a primary source of nutrition information in the US. Minorities and non-English speakers face a digital divide when accessing such information. We aimed to report on the reach of social media dissemination of the cultural adaptation of the evidence-based Kid's Healthy Eating Plate to Spanish-speaking Latinos and of previous versions. MethodsThe adaptation was based on the Framework for Reporting Adaptations and Modifications-Expanded and was disseminated through social media platforms (116 days). Outcomes were impressions, shares, website link clicks, number of viewers, and access country. ResultsThe kids’ culturally adapted version had 288,773 impressions and 1,227 shares on social media; the website was linked 9,763 times, predominantly through Facebook (Meta Platforms, Inc). User engagement and pageviews were mostly from Spain, Latin American countries, and the US. Conclusions and ImplicationsThe cultural adaptation of healthy eating guidelines for Spanish-speaking children was accessed in the US and worldwide. Promotion through social media had a significant impact on its reach. Cultural adaptation and paid dissemination of evidence-based materials may help close the digital divide and promote health literacy in diverse populations.

Professional and Demographic Profile of Spanish-Speaking Child Neurologists in the United States.

>Objective: To ascertain the prevalence of culturally native Spanish-speaking child neurologists in the United States. Methods: Prevalence statistics regarding demographic and work profile were applied to data obtained from a cross-sectional electronic survey of Child Neurology Society (CNS) members. Results: Demographics of the 135 respondents were comparable to a similar CNS survey except for ethnicity as shown in Table1. Fifty- three percent were male and 24% were over age 60. Approximately a quarter were represented each from East, South, Midwest, and Western US. 42% self-identified as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino. 62% spoke English as their primary language and 39% spoke Spanish as their primary language. Two-thirds graduated from a US medical school, 51% practice general neurology, and epilepsy was the most common subspecialty (18%). Two-thirds of respondents practice at a major teaching hospital, and 93% hold university academic appointments. 79% are AAN members. 76% did not have medical student debt at the time of the survey. 29% report signs consistent with burnout. 87% would choose Child Neurology again and 96% would recommend Child Neurology to a medical student. Conclusion: 40% of survey respondents self-identified as Hispanic, Latino or Spanish and spoke Spanish as the primary language and the majority practice in Academic Medicine. Nearly a third of those in the current survey identify burnout symptoms. Consideration of distinctive language and cultural characteristics across the US may lead to provision of a more patient-centered and equitable care.

Online Computerized Adaptive Tests of Children's Vocabulary Development in English and Mexican Spanish.

Measuring the growth of young children's vocabulary is important for researchers seeking to understand language learning as well as for clinicians aiming to identify early deficits. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) are parent report instruments that offer a reliable and valid method for measuring early productive and receptive vocabulary across a number of languages. CDI forms typically include hundreds of words, however, and so the burden of completion is significant. We address this limitation by building on previous work using item response theory (IRT) models to create computer adaptive test (CAT) versions of the CDIs. We created CDI-CATs for both comprehension and production vocabulary, for both American English and Mexican Spanish. Using a data set of 7,633 English-speaking children ages 12-36 months and 1,692 Spanish-speaking children ages 12-30 months, across three CDI forms (Words & Gestures, Words & Sentences, and CDI-III), we found that a 2-parameter logistic IRT model fits well for a majority of the 680 pooled vocabulary items. We conducted CAT simulations on this data set, assessing simulated tests of varying length (25-400 items). Even very short CATs recovered participant abilities very well with little bias across ages. An empirical validation study with N = 204 children ages 15-36 months showed a correlation of r = .92 between language ability estimated from full CDI versus CDI-CAT forms. We provide our item bank along with fitted parameters and other details, offer recommendations for how to construct CDI-CATs in new languages, and suggest when this type of assessment may or may not be appropriate.

Characteristics of the written compositions of Spanish children with dyslexia and their relationship with spelling difficulties

Previous work in English has found that the spelling difficulties of children with dyslexia affect the overall quality attributed to their written compositions. The aim of this study was to investigate whether different processes related to transcription, translation and ideas proposing/planning are affected in developmental dyslexia and to what extent potential deficits are associated to poor spelling. Compositions handwritten by Spanish-speaking children with and without dyslexia aged 9–12 years-old (n = 42) were compared on measures of productivity, spelling accuracy, legibility, lexical diversity, punctuation, sentence structure and grammar, organisation, ideas quality, and readability. Children with dyslexia performed worse in spelling, lexical diversity, syntax and grammar and ideas quality. Interestingly, in the group with dyslexia spelling accuracy contributed to lexical diversity, while lexical diversity was the only significant predictor of syntax and grammar, organisation and ideas quality. This pattern of results was absent in typically developing children. This evidence suggests that spelling difficulties reduce the lexical diversity of the texts of children with dyslexia, which may affect the activity of the translator and the proposer, diminishing the perceived quality of their written compositions.

Bilingual and Monolingual Autistic Toddlers: Language and Social Communication Skills.

Parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) express concern about raising their children bilingually, and often hear advice from professionals against the use of bilingualism. The current study examined the relation between bilingualism and the language and social communication skills of toddlers diagnosed with ASD (N = 353) in the US, while controlling for socioeconomic risk factors. Structural equation modeling showed no differences in language skills between bilingual Spanish-English speaking children and monolingual English-speaking (p = .596) or monolingual Spanish-speaking (p = .963) children and showed a bilingual advantage on socialization skills when comparing bilingual and monolingual English-speaking children (p = .001). Parents of autistic children exposed to Spanish and English should be encouraged to raise their child bilingually if it best suits familial needs.

Argument structure in the Spanish Determiner Phrase: Acquisition of hierarchies through posessivization

Four types of Determiner Phases (DP) in Spanish have arguments in the form of Prepositional Phrases (PP) introduced by de (‘of’). Picture (foto ‘photo’) and deverbal nouns (descripción ‘description’) project a more complex argument structure than relational (primo ‘cousin’) and deadjectival nouns (belleza ‘beauty’). The possessivization test implies that the most prominent de-PP of each DP type can be possessivized depending on different thematic hierarchies. This study analyzes whether comparative complexity affects convergence on possessivization, with earlier convergence predicted for comparatively simpler relational and deadjectival DPs. To test this prediction, this study examines order of DP acquisition in 52 L1 Spanish-speaking children (6-year-olds (N = 14), 7-year-olds (N = 21), 8-year-olds (N = 17)). A Graded Grammaticality Judgment Task (GGJT) containing 32 items divided across four conditions (relational, deadjectival, picture, deverbal) with four contexts each was administered. Results reveal developmental improvement and partial support for the prediction in that relational DPs are converged upon first, while deverbal DPs are converged upon last. This study’s import is the novel examination of argument structure across four DP types in Spanish-speaking children with the aim of observing and explaining the developmental path.

Acquisition of cumulative conditioning effects on words: Spanish-speaking children’s [subject pronoun + verb] usage

Child language acquisition research has provided ample evidence of lexical frequency effects. This corpus-based analysis introduces a novel frequency measure shown to significantly constrain adult language variation, but heretofore unexplored in child language acquisition research. Among adults, frequent occurrence of a form in a particular discourse context that conditions usage accumulates in memory over time and shapes the lexical representation of that form. This study contributes to the body of research on frequency effects in child language acquisition by testing whether such cumulative conditioning effects are also found among children, and, if so, at what age such effects appear. Specifically, the study investigates the influence of a distributional frequency measure (each verb form’s likelihood of use in a switch vs same-reference discourse context) on variable subject personal pronoun (SPP) expression ( N = 2227) in Spanish (e.g. yo voy ~ voy, both meaning ‘I go’) in the speech of 65 monolingual children in two age cohorts. Results reveal sensitivity to the contextual conditioning of discourse continuity (switch reference) among both the younger (6- and 7-year-olds) and older (8- and 9-year-olds) children in support of previous research. In addition, each verb’s likelihood of use in a switch-reference context significantly predicted the SPP use among the older children, but not the younger ones, suggesting that the cumulative effect of a probabilistic pattern takes time to emerge during childhood. The lexically specific accumulation in memory of contextual conditioning effects supports exemplar models of child language acquisition: each instance of use in discourse contributes to the lexical representation of that form and, over time, plays a role in the creation of morphosyntactic patterns during language development.

An examination of the heterogenous nature of literacy development in Spanish-speaking preschool children

ABSTRACT This study evaluated the emergent literacy profiles of preschool Spanish-speaking children. Participants included 440 children in dual-language classrooms who were assessed in English and Spanish at the beginning and end of their preschool year. Research Findings: Through latent profile analysis, conducted with fall data, four empirically derived emergent literacy profiles emerged. Further analyses were conducted to determine if there were differential relations between the literacy profiles and spring early reading measures of alphabet knowledge and oral language, measures that are typically used to evaluate kindergarten readiness for literacy instruction. Practice or Policy: Results highlight the heterogeneous nature of emergent literacy development in Spanish-speaking children and demonstrate the need for individualized literacy instruction during the preschool years.

Language, analogical reasoning, and working memory skills in emergent literacy period: Typical and DLD trajectories via Cluster Analyses

The aim of the present study was to compare emergent literacy profiles among Spanish-speaking preschoolers with and without developmental language disorders (DLD), based on phonological and lexical skills, working memory (WM), and analogical reasoning (AR, including verbal and nonverbal). The study sample was composed of 123 children aged 47- 62 months (age group 1 or G1:M = 55.09, SD = 4.52; 61 boys, 62 girls) and 115 children aged 63–78 months (age group 2 or G2:M = 69.27, SD = 4.16; 54 boys, 61 girls). We compared the performance by age group in all measures, after which hierarchical cluster analyses using emergent literacy scores were performed for each age group. The linguistic and cognitive factors of the resulting clusters were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis test and pairwise comparison. Cluster analysis yielded 3 clusters in each age group that significantly differed on linguistic and cognitive measures. The groups were identified as high, mid, and low performance. DLD groups were associated with low performance in listening comprehension, lexical decision, and syllabification in G1 and lexical repetition and final sound in G2. The high-performance groups were associated with higher performance in syllabification, initial sound, and lexical repetition in G1 and listening comprehension in G2. The main differences between age groups were observed in syllabification and lexical decision. Furthermore, the results suggest that verbal AR and WM are positive markers of linguistic profiles in the youngest group, while only verbal AR appears relevant in the oldest group. These findings highlight the heterogeneity of emergent literacy profiles and may enhance the understanding of language and literacy development in typical and DLD Spanish-speaking children.

Pathways of Development in Child Heritage Speakers' Use of Spanish Demonstratives

Scholars have argued that restricted language input slows language acquisition, but the pathway of development may remain the same. The current study investigated the influence of amount of Spanish input on Spanish demonstrative usage among 19 U.S. child heritage speakers, ages 3;4–8;7. Demonstratives are among the first grammatical features to emerge in children’s language, but we know little about their acquisition by heritage speakers. Previous research shows that monolingual Spanish-speaking children rely heavily on este/esta ‘this’ andonly later learn to vary between demonstrative forms, using este/esta primarily for proximal referents and ese/esa ‘that’ for distal referents. As such, we hypothesized that child heritage speakers who experience restricted Spanish input would rely on este/esta for a prolonged period of time. 586 demonstratives were elicited during a puzzle completion task and were coded for referent location (proximal, distal). Contrary to our hypothesis, less Spanish spoken at home negatively correlated with proportion of este/esta-usage. Children exposed to abundant Spanish in the home patterned like adult monolingual Spanish speakers, producing este/esta for proximal referents and ese/esa for distal referents. By contrast, children who experienced restricted input in Spanish produced mostly ese/esa, regardless of spatial location of the referent. The results suggest that restricted input in Spanish yields a developmental trajectory with overgeneralization of ese/esa rather than este/esta. Importantly, we argue thatthe identification of two groups of child heritage speakers who exhibit different developmental pathways lends itself to differentiated instruction in the heritage language classroom.

Verbal and More: Multimodality in Adults’ and Toddlers’ Spontaneous Repetitions

ABSTRACT This study investigated verbal imitation from a multimodal point of view, considering the mutual influence of children’s and adults’ participation. Sixteen Spanish-speaking children were observed longitudinally at 21, 24, and 30 months of age in natural settings. We analyzed the multimodal characteristics of children’s and adults’ repetitions, considering whether they were verbal, verbal-gestural, or gestural. In addition, we also analyzed the multimodal characteristics of the utterances that were repeated (source). Measures of vocabulary and grammatical levels were also taken into account at the three points in development. Results showed that verbal-gestural repetitions were frequent in the speech of children and adults, although not as frequent as verbal repetitions. Nevertheless, verbal-gestural speech was reproduced more frequently than verbal speech. Adults were more likely to reproduce children’s speech when it included gestures, which was also related to children’s linguistic level. Furthermore, children and adults synchronize their multimodal communicative behaviors, coordinating the modality of their repetitions with the modality of the source speech. The results are discussed taking into account the need to study the multimodal characteristics of child-directed speech, as well as the need to study verbal repetition and multimodal communicative behaviors simultaneously, as forms of interaction that are essential to language development.