Spanish-speaking Preschool Children Research Articles

ECI-4 screening of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and co-morbidity in Mexican preschool children: preliminary results

To examine prospectively usefulness of Early Childhood Inventory-4 (ECI-4) in identifying attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD). A sample of children <6 years of age were evaluated in school settings with ECI-4 and results compared with those of Conners Rating Scales-Revised (CRS-R) 6 months later. Sample consisted of 34 healthy children (20 boys, 14 girls) prospectively followed-up. Frequency of children fulfill DSM-IV AD-HD criteria in ECI-4 parent scale was 17%, and in teacher scale was 32%. Frequency of children fulfill DSM-IV AD-HD criteria in parent CRS-R was 20%, and for teacher questionnaire was 23%. Correlations were significant among teacher ECI-4 and both teacher and parent CRS-R scales. Sensitivity and specificity of teacher and parent ECI-4 scales were not good. Frequency of ODD identified in parent ECI-4 scale was 5%, and for teacher 17%. Frequency of ODD in CRS-R for parents and teachers questionnaires was 17%. CD was not identified by parents in ECI-4 scale, but in teacher scale frequency was 14%. These facts support partially the use of ECI-4 screening of ADHD in Spanish-speaking preschool children.

Phonological processing and emergent literacy in Spanish-speaking preschool children

Phonological awareness (PA), phonological memory (PM), and phonological access to lexical storage (also known as RAN), play important roles in acquiring literacy. We examined the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of these phonological processing abilities (PPAs) in 147 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children whose native language was Spanish. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the validity of each PPA as separate from general cognitive ability and separate from each other. Moreover, structural equation modeling found RAN uniquely associated with knowledge of Spanish letter names and Spanish letter sounds. PA was found the best predictor of children's ability to distinguish alphabetic text from nonalphabetic text. Finally, general cognitive ability was only indirectly associated with emergent literacy skills via PPAs. These results highlight the importance of PPAs in the early literacy development of native Spanish speaking preschool children.

Morphology in incipient bilingual Spanish-speaking preschool children with specific language impairment

This study examined the use of clitic pronouns by incipient bilingual Spanish-speaking 4- and 5-year-old children with and without language impairments. Incipient bilingualism refers to the initial stages of contact between two languages, when an individual still has only passive knowledge of a second language. The participants included 10 children with typical language development and 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI). The experimental task elicited clitic pronouns serving as direct objects with finite verbs (lo, la, los, and las). The children who had SLI used clitic pronouns less frequently than their age-matched peers and were less accurate in their use of gender agreement for clitics. No group differences were found for third person singular and plural verb inflections in the preterite tense. These results were compared to previous studies of Spanish- and Italian-speaking children with SLI.

Guidelines for Identifying Primarily Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children With Language Impairment

Guidelines for Identifying Primarily Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children With Language Impairment

Assessing the Grammar of Spanish-Speaking Children

The present investigation compared two testing instruments for evaluating the grammatical skills of Spanish-speaking preschool children. The Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool (SPELT-P, Werner &amp; Kresheck, 1989) was compared to a structured task activity developed by the investigator. Both procedures targeted the same grammatical forms. Results indicated that the structured task procedure was more effective in evaluating children’s productive knowledge of the grammatical forms tested. Children performed significantly better in this task. Procedural differences across the testing instruments were responsible for the observed differences. Issues concerning the effect of task on performance are discussed as they relate to the assessment of the culturally and linguistically diverse child.

Selected pragmatic features in Spanish-speaking preschool children.

We assessed Spanish-speaking preschool children for the development of seven language functions and three discourse features. Analyses consisted of spontaneous language samples averaging 136 utterances per child, for 18 subjects between 3:0 and 4:5 (years:months). Data for the frequency of occurrence and the percentage of appropriate usage showed that the preschoolers had established communicative competence for the functions and discourse features. Implications include establishing preliminary guidelines for the development of normal pragmatics in Hispanic preschoolers. We also discuss the 10-item taxonomy as a reliable and clinically useful tool with either English-speaking or Spanish-speaking children.

The Influence of Teachers and Peers on Second Language Acquisition in Bilingual Preschool Programs

The interfactional patterns of eleven Spanish-speaking preschool children enrolled in two different bilingual programs were observed over the course of one year. The programs were characterized by a majority of Spanish-speaking children in the classrooms at one site and of English-speaking children in the classrooms at the second preschool. Consistent with the linguistic composition of the classes, teaching staffs were generally found to use a predominance of Spanish or English respectively in their classrooms. For all classrooms, language choices of individual children were examined. In classrooms where English-speaking children predominated, greater language proficiency was found to be more consistently related to the use of English with peers than with teachers. In classrooms where Spanish-speaking students were prevalent, on the other hand, interactions with the teachers in English were more consistently related to greater English language proficiency. Implications for the teaching of young children in a dual language environment are discussed.

A COMMENT ON NEDLER AND SEBERA'S "INTERVENTION STRATEGIES FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN"

GILLMORE, GERALD M., and STALLINGS, WILLIAM M. A Comment on Nedler and Sebera's Intervention Strategies for Spanish-speaking Preschool Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1972, 43, 1035-1038. In evaluating 3 intervention strategies for Spanish-speaking preschool children, Nedler and Sebera (1971) presented data which they concluded gave evidence of the superiority of a planned Bilingual Early Childhood Educational Program over both a Parental Involvement Program and a traditional day-care center. However, while they may have developed a successful strategy, the analyses which they presented did not support that conclusion. Several logical and computational errors were evident. Further evaluation of the program would seem to be indicated.

A Comment on Nedler and Sebera's "Intervention Strategies for Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children"

A Comment on Nedler and Sebera's "Intervention Strategies for Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children"

INTERVENTION STRATEGIES FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

NEDLER, SHARI, and SEBERA, PEGGY. Intervention Strategies for Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971, 42, 259-267. This study compared 3 strategies of early intervention designed to increase the language and communication skills of disadvantaged 3-year-old Mexican-American children. Treatment group I (T1 included 16 children in a planned Bilingual Early Childhood Educational Program. Group T2 included 16 children who were indirectly involved in a Parental Involvement Program. Group T3 was composed of 14 children in a traditional day-care center. Before and after a 9-month intervention period, all Ss were tested with the Leiter International Performance Scale and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test in English and Spanish. On all measures, T1 made significantly greater gains than T2 or T3, indicating the greater effectiveness of the planned Bilingual Early Childhood Education Program.

Intervention Strategies for Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children

Intervention Strategies for Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children

A Bilingual Oral Language and Conceptual Development Program for Spanish-Speaking Pre-School Children

Of the approximately 90,000 migrants identified in Michigan in 1968, about 10% were intrastate and another 10% left the migrant stream at the end of the growing season to make Michigan their home. The great majority, however, came to Michigan from other states in May or June, moved within Michigan every two to four weeks, and then returned to their home states in September or October. Most of Michigan's migrants are from Texas and New Mexico, and most have a Spanish-speaking background. There are some migrants from Florida, California, and other states, including some blacks and Appalachia whites. The Michigan Department of Education runs a comprehensive program serving the social, physical, occupational, and educational needs of this population. The materials I will describe are a part of the educational program at the preschool level, which in Michigan means primarily fouryear-olds. Although the older children generally speak a non-standard dialect of English learned from their peers and in school, the preschoolers most often speak a non-standard dialect of Spanish, learned from their parents. There are obviously many serious problems in implementing a meaningful educational program for a highly mobile, non-English-speaking population. The two problems of most relevance at this time are: (1) the teachers involved in the program, who usually have experience with disadvantaged youngsters, have little background in either linguistics or in teaching English as a foreign language, and (2), because of this lack of appropriate preparation, the teacher is more likely to assume that low I.Q. or motivation accounts for student failure rather than assuming that she can and should modify her language-teaching techniques until she becomes effective. For these reasons, the program I will describe gives the teacher detailed and carefully planned oral language lessons that take into account important linguistic considerations. This provides her with linguistically controlled activities, while at the same time preparing her to develop similar activities of her own. The package we developed should be thought of as an ordered sequence of suggestions to teachers. We have sought to provide