Speech, language, and hearing in developing bilingual children: current findings and future directions.
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An examination of phonological awareness treatment outcomes for seventh-grade poor readers from a bilingual community.
PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to examine posttreatment outcomes following direct, systematic phonological awareness instruction for seventh-grade poor readers, most of whom had English as their second language. METHOD: The treatment group (n = 35) participated in small-group instruction sessions that emphasized phonological awareness at the phoneme level and incorporated explicit linkages to literacy. The treatment, which was administered in the participants' school setting over a 12-week period, involved approximately 45 hr of contact with a trained instructor. Postintervention performance of the treatment group was compared to performance of students from the same school and grade level who were waiting to receive phonological awareness treatment (nontreatment group, n= 33). RESULTS: ANCOVA results for total reading scores and MANCOVA results for Phonological Awarenes, Word Attack, Word Identification, Word Comprehension, and Passage Comprehension subtests indicated that group differences were significant. The posttreatment scores of the treatment group were higher for all measures. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Seventh-grade poor readers, including bilingual students who have English as their second language, can benefit from direct, systematic instruction that emphasizes phonological awareness and is linked to literacy.
Awareness↗
Speech-language pathologists' beliefs about language assessment of bilingual/bicultural individuals.
A survey of speech/language pathologists, in 5 states across the United States was conducted to determine their beliefs about the language assessment of bilingual/bicultural individuals. Most SLPs reported low efficacy in bilingual assessment for both their own skills (personal efficacy) and those of the field in general (general efficacy). SLPs who learned a second language in the context of cultural experience (the CE group) reported more personal efficacy in bilingual assessment than speech-language pathologists who learned a second language via academic study (the AS group), who in turn felt more competent than monolingual SLPs (the M group). Furthermore, the 3 groups of respondents differed in terms of attributions for their low personal efficacy. The M group was most likely to mention their lack of knowledge about bilingual issues, the AS group commented on their less than optimal language proficiency, and the CE group focused on both proficiency and experience as influences. Over half of all participants (52%) reported that bilingual input in a child's environment would influence their interpretation of that child's language assessment results. Most of these participants (40%) reported that they would be more conservative in recommending language therapy for a bilingual than a monolingual child, particularly due to the respondent's own lack of knowledge of bilingual issues. Implications regarding the relations between language learning experiences and beliefs about the assessment of bilingual/bicultural individuals among SLPs are discussed.
Adolescent↗
The language abilities of bilingual children with Down syndrome.
Children with Down syndrome (DS) have cognitive disabilities resulting from trisomy 21. Language-learning difficulties, especially expressive language problems, are an important component of the phenotype of this population. Many individuals with DS are born into bilingual environments. To date, however, there is almost no information available regarding the capacity of these individuals to acquire more than 1 language. The present study compared the language abilities of 8 children with DS being raised bilingually with those of 3 control groups matched on developmental level: monolingual children with DS (n = 14), monolingual typically developing (TD) children (n = 18), and bilingual TD children (n = 11). All children had at least 100 words in their productive vocabularies but a mean length of utterance of less than 3.5. The bilingual children spoke English and 1 other language and were either balanced bilinguals or English-dominant. English testing was completed for all children using the following: the Preschool Language Scale, Third Edition; language sampling; and the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). Bilingual children were also tested in the second language using a vocabulary comprehension test, the CDI, and language sampling. Results provided evidence of a similar profile of language abilities in bilingual children as has been documented for monolingual children with DS. There was no evidence of a detrimental effect of bilingualism. That is, the bilingual children with DS scored at least as well on all English tests as their monolingual DS counterparts. Nonetheless, there was considerable diversity in the second-language abilities demonstrated by these individuals with DS. Clinical implications are addressed.
Aptitude↗
English past tense use in bilingual children with language impairment.
Grammatical measures that distinguish language differences from language disorders in bilingual children are scarce. This study examined English past tense morphology in sequential bilingual Spanish/English-speaking children, age 7;0-9;0 (years;months). Twelve bilingual children with language impairment (LI) or history of LI and 15 typically developing (TD) bilingual children participated. Thirty-six instances of the past tense including regular, irregular, and novel verbs were examined using an elicited production task. By examining English past tense morphology in sequential bilinguals, we uncovered similarities and differences in the error patterns of TD children and children with LI. The groups differed in the overall accuracy of past tense use according to verb type, as well as the characteristic error patterns. Children with LI performed lower than their TD peers on all verb categories, with an interaction between verb type and group. TD children were better at producing regular verbs and exhibited more productive errors (e.g., overregularization). Conversely, children with LI performed relatively better on irregular verbs and poorest on novel verbs, and they exhibited more nonproductive errors (e.g., bare stem verbs). The results have important clinical implications for the assessment of morphological productivity in Spanish-speaking children who are learning English sequentially.
Case-Control Studies↗
Digit speech recognition thresholds (SRT) for non-native speakers of English.
Although Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) W-1 stimuli are routinely used for speech recognition threshold (SRT) testing, they are not always familiar to new learners of English and often lead to erroneous assessments. To improve test accuracy, alternative stimuli were constructed by pairing familiar English digits. These digit pairs were used to measure SRT for 12 non-native speakers of English and 12 native speakers of English. Results indicate that digit pairs effectively measure SRT for both participant groups; and more importantly, for non-native speakers of English, digit pairs are more accurate than CID W-1 words in measuring the hearing threshold for speech. Digit-pairs have cross-linguistic appeal and should greatly facilitate accurate SRT testing for listeners with minimal exposure to English.
Adult↗
Exploring possible sociocultural bias on the SCAN-C.
Sociocultural bias on the SCAN-C (R. W. Keith, 2000) was investigated with 20 Anglo American and 20 Latino American 8-year-old children from low- and mid-high-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Univariate and repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) failed to reveal any significant differences between the groups when clustered by ethnicity and SES. The Latino American participants' scores were analyzed for dialectal variations, and the ANOVA analyses were repeated using the corrected scores. No significant interactions were observed. Classification analyses revealed that 10% more Latino American children than Anglo American children fell into the borderline-to-disordered category based on SCAN-C composite scores; these classification differences were most apparent on the Filtered Words subtest (with a difference of 25%). When scores with dialectal rescoring were considered, the classification distribution for the Latino American children more closely matched that of the Anglo American children. Given the increased likelihood of Latino American children scoring in the borderline-to-disordered category, caution should be used in interpreting SCAN-C results for Latino American children. Dialect scoring should be applied when Latino American children fall in the borderline-to-disordered category.
Bias↗
Sensitive periods differentiate processing of open- and closed-class words: an ERP study of bilinguals.
The goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that neural processes for language are heterogeneous in their adaptations to maturation and experience. This study examined whether the neural processes for open- and closed-class words are differentially affected by delays in second-language immersion. In English, open-class words primarily convey referential meaning, whereas closed-class words are primarily related to grammatical information in sentence processing. Previous studies indicate that event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by these word classes display nonidentical distributions and latencies, show different developmental time courses, and are differentially affected by early language experience in Deaf individuals. In this study, ERPs were recorded from 10 monolingual English speakers and 53 Chinese-English bilingual speakers who were grouped according to their age of immersion in English: 1-3, 4-6, 7-10, 11-13, and >15 years of age. Closed-class words elicited an N280 that was largest over left anterior electrode sites for all groups. However, the peak latency was later (>35 ms) in bilingual speakers immersed in English after 7 years of age. In contrast, the latencies and distributions of the N350 elicited by open-class words were similar in all groups. In addition, the N400, elicited by semantic anomalies (open-class words that violated semantic expectation), displayed increased peak latencies for only the later-learning bilingual speakers (>11 years). These results are consistent with the hypothesis that language subprocesses are differentially sensitive to the timing of second-language experience.
Adolescent↗
Understanding bilingualism and its impact on speech audiometry.
This tutorial provides a review of auditory research conducted with monolingual and bilingual speakers of Spanish and English. Based on a functional view of bilingualism and on auditory research findings showing that the bilingual experience may affect the outcome of auditory research, we discuss methods for improving descriptions of linguistically diverse research participants. The review delves into how the bilingual experience can affect auditory research outcomes and discusses ways in which experimental design can be adjusted when bilingual or monolingual participants are used for research needs. The goal of the tutorial is to increase awareness about the complexities of using bilinguals in auditory research, thereby improving the quality of auditory research involving bilingual research participants.
Humans↗
Balancing bilinguals II: lexical comprehension and cognitive processing in children learning Spanish and English.
The present study investigated developmental changes in lexical comprehension skills in early sequential bilinguals, in both Spanish (L1) and English (L2), exploring the effects of age, years of experience, and basic-level cognitive processing (specifically the ability to maintain performance during mixed vs. single-language processing) within a timed picture-word verification task. Participants were 100 individuals, 20 at each of five different age levels (ages in years, 5-7, 8-10, 11-13, 14-16, and adults). All had learned Spanish as a first language in the home, with formal English experience beginning at 5 years. Gains (as indexed by increased response speed) were made in both languages across age, although these gains were greater in English than in Spanish. The youngest participants were relatively "balanced" in their crosslinguistic performance. By middle childhood, performance was better in English. There were no response decrements at any age between the mixed and single-language processing conditions. These results are compared to those from a previous study that investigated basic-level lexical production in developing Spanish-English bilinguals. Both studies show a move toward English dominance in middle childhood, but the transition occurs earlier in comprehension. The production study showed differences between mixed and single-language processing (reflecting potential interlanguage interference) that are not evident in comprehension.
Adolescent↗
Use of the language development survey (LDS) in a national probability sample of children 18 to 35 months old.
Data are reported from a national probability sample used to norm the Language Development Survey (LDS; L. Rescorla, 1989) and the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1 1/2-5 (CBCL/1 1/25; T. M. Achenbach & L. Rescorla, 2000). Participants were 278 children 18 to 35 months old who were highly diverse in socioeconomic status (SES), ethnic composition, and language background. Vocabulary scores increased markedly with age, were somewhat higher in girls, and were modestly correlated with SES. Children of non-Latino White ethnicity had significantly higher vocabulary scores and mean length of phrases than children of African American or "other" ethnicity (Hispanics/Asians/Native Americans/South Asians/mixed), even when SES was used as a covariate. Rate of language delay, using the cut-off of fewer than 50 words or no word combinations, was lower in the non-Latino White group (4%) than in the other two ethnicity groups (29% and 24%). Correlations between LDS scores and problem scores on the CBCL/1 1/2-5 were low, indicating that language delay and emotional/behavior problems were not closely associated in this general population sample of children 18 to 35 months old.
Child↗
Picture naming in early sequential bilinguals: a 1-year follow-up.
In a previous study, a cross-sectional approach was used to investigate developmental changes in basic-level lexical production and cognitive processing in early sequential bilinguals, exploring the effects of age and years of experience during single-language (Spanish or English) and mixed-language (alternating between Spanish and English) picture naming (K. Kohnert, E. Bates, & A. E. Hernandez, 1999). The current study reports on the performance, 1 year later, of a subgroup of these original study participants (n = 28; mean age = 10.2 years) on the same experimental task. Overall, from Time 1 to Time 2 testing, gains were greater in English than in Spanish and in the high-competition mixed-language processing condition than in the single-language processing condition. These results reinforce previous findings of a shift toward greater strength in L2 with increasing age (and years of language experience), as well as the primary role of cognitive development in control of the dual-language system. In addition, examination of individual performance revealed a complex non-monotonic pattern of L1-L2 change across time within an overall pattern of increasing speed, accuracy, and control of the dual-lexical system.
Child↗
Category-generation performance of bilingual children: the influence of condition, category, and language.
Research suggests that young children use a script-based slot-filler strategy to develop categories. Children are reported to develop a taxonomic strategy by about age 8. The purpose of this study was to examine how bilingual (Spanish-English) children used taxonomic versus slot-filler strategies in a category-generation task presented in each language. Results indicated that although younger bilingual children (M age = 5;1) generated approximately equal numbers of items in both conditions, older bilingual children (M age = 6;5) were beginning to demonstrate a taxonomic bias. Furthermore, although bilingual children tended to generate similar numbers of items in each language under the different conditions, comparisons between the two languages indicated that a large proportion (68.40%) of items was unique to either language.
Child↗
Concurrent validity of caregiver/parent report measures of language for children who are learning both English and Spanish.
The validity of two analogous caregiver/parent report measures of early language development in young children who are learning both English and Spanish is examined. Caregiver/parent report indices of vocabulary production and grammar were obtained for 26 children using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words & Sentences (CDI; Fenson et al., 1994) and the Inventario del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas: Palabras y Enunciados (IDHC; Jackson-Maldonado, Bates, & Thal, 1992). Scores were significantly correlated with analogous laboratory measures in both English and Spanish, including a real-object naming task and spontaneous language use during free-play. The findings offer evidence that the CDI and IDHC provide valid assessments of early language milestones in young English- and Spanish-speaking children. Factors that may influence the validity of these tools for use with this population are also discussed.
Attitude↗
French-English bilingual children with SLI: how do they compare with their monolingual peers?
The goal of this study was to determine whether bilingual children with specific language impairment (SLI) are similar to monolingual age mates with SLI, in each language. Eight French-English bilingual children with SLI were compared to age-matched monolingual children with SLI, both English and French speaking, with respect to their use of morphosyntax in language production. Specifically, using the extended optional infinitive (EOI) framework, the authors examined the children's use of tense-bearing and non-tense-bearing morphemes in obligatory context in spontaneous speech. Analyses revealed that the patterns predicted by the EOI framework were borne out for both the monolingual and bilingual children with SLI: The bilingual and monolingual children with SLI showed greater accuracy with non-tense than with tense morphemes. Furthermore, the bilingual and monolingual children with SLI had similar mean accuracy scores for tense morphemes, indicating that the bilingual children did not exhibit more profound deficits in the use of these grammatical morphemes than their monolingual peers. In sum, the bilingual children with SLI in this study appeared similar to their monolingual peers for the aspects of grammatical morphology examined in each language. These bilingual-monolingual similarities point to the possibility that SLI may not be an impediment to learning two languages, at least in the domain of grammatical morphology.
Child↗
Verbal working memory in bilingual children.
The present study compared the performance of 44 Latino children on the Competing Language Processing Task (CLPT; C. Gaulin and T. Campbell, 1994) and the Dual Processing Comprehension Task (DPCT; S. Ellis Weismer, 1996). First, it was of interest to know if there were significant differences between children with and without bilingual proficiency on processing tasks that were assumed to require limited vocabulary knowledge. The second goal of this research was to determine whether there were cross-linguistic differences in verbal working memory by examining performance within bilinguals and between children with limited proficiency in a second language. The performance of the participating children was also examined in the context of research with other English-speaking groups. Finally, given that the CLPT and the DPCT may differ in their processing demands (from a relative focus on storage to one of attention inhibition or resistance to interference), it was important to know the extent to which these tasks were related or involved similar cognitive-linguistic operations. Results revealed shared processing skills as well as differences related to individual attainments in bilingual acquisition.
Child↗
The search for common ground: Part I. Lexical performance by linguistically diverse learners.
This study examines lexical performance by 3 groups of linguistically diverse school-age learners: English-only speakers with primary language impairment (LI), typical English-only speakers (EO), and typical bilingual Spanish-English speakers (BI). The accuracy and response time (RT) of 100 8- to 13-year-old children in word recognition and picture-naming tasks were analyzed. Within each task, stimulus difficulty was manipulated to include very easy stimuli (words that were high frequency/had an early age of acquisition in English) and more difficult stimuli (words of low frequency/late age of acquisition [AOA]). There was no difference among groups in real-word recognition accuracy or RT; all 3 groups showed lower accuracy with low-frequency words. In picture naming, all 3 groups showed a longer RT for words with a late AOA, although AOA had a disproportionate negative impact on BI performance. The EO group was faster and more accurate than both LI and BI groups in conditions with later acquired stimuli. Results are discussed in terms of quantitative differences separating EO children from the other 2 groups and qualitative similarities linking monolingual children with and without LI.
Child↗
The search for common ground: Part II. Nonlinguistic performance by linguistically diverse learners.
Below-average performance on some nonlinguistic tasks often is considered a potential correlate of primary language impairment (LI). If nonlinguistic cognitive processing truly is deficient in children with LI, then measures may be identified that distinguish language learners at risk for LI that are independent of the number and type of languages learned. This study focuses on within- and across-task performance on 4 basic nonlinguistic processing tasks. The aim was to systematically investigate areas of potential overlap and divergence among 3 groups of linguistically diverse children: English-only speakers with LI, typically developing English-only speakers (EO), and typically developing bilingual Spanish-English speakers (BI). The performance of the 100 8-13-year-old children who took part in J. Windsor and K. Kohnert's (2004) study was analyzed. Experimental tasks were simple and choice versions of auditory- and visual-detection tasks. Each task included 4 levels of motor difficulty: responding with the preferred and nonpreferred hand and foot. Analyses revealed no significant differences among groups in simple auditory detection. The EO group was significantly faster than the LI group in each of the other 3 tasks. While the same pattern was evident for the BI group, the difference was significant only in choice visual detection. Overall patterns of response latency within and across tasks were qualitatively similar across the 3 groups. Development, indexed here by chronological age, played a significant role in predicting response latencies for children in all 3 groups.
Adolescent↗