Action naming in Spanish and English by sequential bilingual children and adolescents

A Narrative Approach to Synthesizing Research on Vietnamese Bilingual and Monolingual Children

PURPOSE

This review article offers a narrativized synthesis of my research over the past 15+ years with Vietnamese-speaking children based on data collected from individual bilingual and monolingual children in preschool and elementary schools.

METHOD

I begin with a positionality narrative to describe who I am in relation to the research conducted. I provide an overview of the research program including tool building and how my research with bilinguals in the United States led me to international collaborations in Vietnam.

RESULTS

I present main findings from this body of work in three areas: typical bilingual development, reading performance in Vietnam, and characteristics of developmental language disorder in the Vietnamese language. Implications within each area are discussed in terms of clinical application and future research directions. Practitioners and researchers alike can freely access the Vietnamese assessment tools created and validated to date from our website, https://vietslp.sdsu.edu/.

CONCLUSIONS

This research overview aims to offer clinicians and researchers the sociocultural context for understanding the relevance of this body of research. It also serves as an invitation for new generations of scholars, particularly scholars of color, to see their own unique positionings and perspectives as valuable and necessary for scientific innovation and progress.

PRESENTATION VIDEO

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23929491.

Impacts on Head Start Dual Language Learning Children’s Early Science Outcomes

The present study examined the roles that language of assessment, language dominance, and teacher language use during instruction play in Dual Language Learner (DLL) science scores. A total of 255 Head Start DLL children were assessed on equated science assessments in English and Spanish. First overall differences between the two languages were examined, then associations between performance on science assessments were compared and related to children’s language dominance, teacher quantity of English and Spanish, and teachers’ academic science language. When examined as a homogeneous group, DLLs did not perform differently on English or Spanish science assessments. However, when examined heterogeneously, Spanish-dominant DLLs performed better on Spanish science assessments. The percentage of English and Spanish used by teachers did not affect children’s science scores. Teachers’ use of Spanish academic science language impacted children’s performance on science assessments, but English did not. The results have implications for the assessment of DLLs and teacher language use during instruction.

Processing of Code-Switched Sentences in Noise by Bilingual Children

Purpose The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of code-switching on bilingual children's online processing and offline comprehension of sentences in the presence of noise. In addition, the study examined individual differences in language ability and cognitive control skills as moderators of children's ability to process code-switched sentences in noise. Method The participants were 50 Spanish-English bilingual children, ages 7;0-11;8 (years;months). Children completed an auditory moving window task to examine whether they processed sentences with code-switching more slowly and less accurately than single-language sentences in the presence of noise. They completed the Dimensional Change Card Sort task to index cognitive control and standardized language measures in English and Spanish to index relative language dominance and overall language ability. Results Children were significantly less accurate in answering offline comprehension questions about code-switched sentences presented in noise compared to single-language sentences, especially for their dominant language. They also tended to exhibit slower processing speed, but costs did not reach significance. Language ability had an overall effect on offline comprehension but did not moderate the effects of code-switching. Cognitive control moderated the extent to which offline comprehension costs were affected by language dominance. Conclusions The findings of the current study suggest that code-switching, especially in the presence of background noise, may place additional demands on children's ability to comprehend sentences. However, it may be the processing of the nondominant language, rather than code-switching per se, that is especially difficult in the presence of noise.

Language Differentiation Using Augmentative and Alternative Communication: An Investigation of Spanish-English Bilingual Children With and Without Language Impairments

Purpose Children with severe speech and language impairments growing up in dual language environments may communicate in more than one language using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). This study investigated predictors of bilingual children's ability to differentiate between Spanish and English using an AAC iPad app during a cued language-switching task and examined whether switching between languages using AAC incurred a cognitive cost. Method Participants were 58 Spanish-English bilingual children ages 4;0-6;11 (years;months; 23 with language impairments). Children received standardized language and cognitive assessments and completed an experimental language-switching task in which they were asked to differentiate between languages using an AAC iPad app containing English and Spanish vocabulary layouts paired with voice output. Results Results of a binary logistic regression indicated that, when controlling for age, processing speed significantly predicted whether children were classified as high or low performers on the experimental task. Nonparametric tests indicated that switching between languages did not incur a cognitive cost as evidenced by similar response times on trials where participants were required to switch between languages compared to trials where they did not switch. Conclusion This study contributes to the understanding of how young bilingual children with and without language impairments conceptualize and discriminate between languages represented in a visual-graphic modality paired with speech output. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13289330.

Are there Cognitive Benefits of Code-switching in Bilingual Children? A longitudinal study

The current study explored bilingual parent and child code-switching patterns over time. Concurrent and predictive models of code-switching behaviour on executive function outcomes were also examined in a sample of 29 French-English bilinguals at 36 (Wave 1) and 61 (Wave 2) months of age. We investigated whether code-switching typology in a single-language context predicted executive function performance at each wave independently, and whether growth in code-switching frequency across waves predicted executive function performance at Wave 2. At both waves, parents and children participated in two free play sessions (in English and French), followed by a battery of executive function tasks administered in the dominant language. Results indicate more frequent code-switching from the non-dominant to the dominant language in children, and that children code-switch to fill lexical gaps. Results also suggest that less frequent code-switching in a single-language context is associated with better inhibitory control skills during the preschool period.

Processing of code-switched sentences by bilingual children: Cognitive and linguistic predictors

Production studies of language switching have identified costs in the speed and/or accuracy of word production, but it is unclear whether processing costs are experienced by listeners as well. A related question is whether language control during comprehension recruits domain-general cognitive control. The current study examined processing of code-switching in Spanish-English bilingual children (ages 6;0-11;10) using an auditory moving window paradigm. Cognitive control was indexed by the Dimensional Change Card Sort. Children exhibited significant costs in processing speed when listening to code-switched sentences, but no costs in a measure of offline comprehension. The extent to which cognitive control skills moderated processing costs depended on the robustness of the language system: children with higher language skills exhibited a greater moderating effect of cognitive control. Taken together, the findings provide limited support for a role of cognitive control in children's code-switching processing and suggest that the processing costs incurred may be transitory.

Contributions of nonlinguistic task-shifting to language control in bilingual children

Language control, bilinguals' ability to regulate which language is used, has been posited to recruit domain-general cognitive control. However, studies relating language control and cognitive control have yielded mixed results in adults and have not been undertaken in children. The current study examined the contributions of nonlinguistic task-shifting to language control in Spanish-English bilingual children (ages 5-7) during a cued-switch picture-naming task. Language control was assessed at two levels: (1) cross-language errors, which indexed the success of language selection, and (2) naming speed, which indexed the efficiency of lexical selection. Nonlinguistic task-shifting was a robust predictor of children's cross-language errors, reflecting a role for domain-general cognitive control during language selection. However, task-shifting predicted naming speed only in children's non-dominant language, suggesting a more nuanced role for cognitive control in the efficiency of selecting a particular lexical target.

The effects of bilingual status on lexical comprehension and production in Maltese five-year-old children: A LITMUS-CLT study

This article investigates whether the bilingual status of 56 typically developing children aged 60-69 months influenced their lexical abilities. The participants were identified as Maltese-dominant (Me) (n = 21), English-dominant (Em) (n = 15) and balanced bilingual (ME) (n = 20) on the basis of language exposure and proficiency, as reported by their parents. Comprehension and production of nouns and verbs were measured using Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT) in Maltese (CLT-MT) and British English (CLT-EN). Significant effects of bilingual group were identified for performance on lexical comprehension. For production, consistent bilingual group effects resulted when accurate concepts lexicalised in the test language were scored. Lexical mixing was more pronounced when children were tested in their non-dominant language. Maltese noun production elicited the highest levels of mixing across all groups. Findings point towards the need to consider specific exposure dynamics to each language within a single language pair when assessing children's bilingual lexical skills.

The Language Exposure Assessment Tool: Quantifying Language Exposure in Infants and Children

Purpose

The aim of this study was to develop the Language Exposure Assessment Tool (LEAT) and to examine its cross-linguistic validity, reliability, and utility. The LEAT is a computerized interview-style assessment that requests parents to estimate language exposure. The LEAT yields an automatic calculation of relative language exposure and captures qualitative aspects of early language experience.

Method

Relative language exposure as reported on the LEAT and vocabulary size at 17 months of age were measured in a group of bilingual language learners with varying levels of exposure to French and English or Spanish and English.

Results

The LEAT demonstrates high internal consistency and criterion validity. In addition, the LEAT's calculation of relative language exposure explains variability in vocabulary size above a single overall parent estimate.

Conclusions

The LEAT is a valid and efficient tool for characterizing early language experience across cultural settings and levels of language exposure. The LEAT could be a useful tool in clinical contexts to aid in determining whether assessment and intervention should be conducted in one or more languages.

A longitudinal analysis of sentence interpretation in bilingual children

This longitudinal study used sentence interpretation tasks to consider growth in language processing among school-aged children learning Vietnamese and English. Thirty-two children participated yearly over three time points. Children were asked to identify the agent of sentences that manipulated linguistic cues relevant to Vietnamese (animacy) and English (word order). Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine change in cue use over time as well as the relation between cue use and proficiency in each language. Findings include exclusive reliance on word order by the end point, nearly identical group-level cue-use patterns across languages with individual variation, and positive relationships between language proficiency and cue use. Findings are discussed within the unified competition model (MacWhinney, 2004) and the literature on sequential bilingualism.

Voluntary language switching in English-Spanish bilingual children

Although bilingual children frequently switch between languages, the psycholinguistic mechanisms underlying the emerging ability to control language choice are unknown. We examined the mechanisms of voluntary language switching in English-Spanish bilingual children during a picture-naming task under two conditions: 1) single-language naming in English and in Spanish; 2) either-language naming, when the children could use whichever language they wanted. The mechanism of inhibitory control was examined by analyzing local switching costs and global mixing costs. The mechanism of lexical accessibility was examined by analyzing the properties of the items children chose to name in their non-dominant language. The children exhibited significant switching costs across both languages and asymmetrical mixing costs; they also switched into their non-dominant language most frequently on highly accessible items. These findings suggest that both lexical accessibility and inhibition contribute to language choice during voluntary language switching in children.

Lexical profiles of bilingual children with primary language impairment

This study used lexical tasks to examine associations between languages, tasks, and age in bilingual children with primary language impairment. Participants (n = 41, mean age 8;8 years) lived in the United States, spoke primarily Spanish (L1) at home and English (L2) at school, and were identified with moderate to severe impairments in both languages. A total of eight tasks (four in each language) measured breadth of vocabulary knowledge (receptive and expressive vocabulary) and aspects of lexical processing (rapid automatic naming and nonword repetition). Correlational analyses revealed older children outperformed younger children on lexical tasks in L2 but not L1, as well as relative L2 dominance for most individuals and tasks. Positive associations were found between languages on processing-based tasks but not vocabulary measures. Findings were consistent with literature on typical bilingual learners, albeit with a notable increased risk of plateau in L1 growth. Results are interpreted within a Dynamic Systems framework.

Bilingual lexical skills of school-age children with Chinese and Korean heritage languages in the United States

This cross-sectional study investigated the bilingual lexical skills of 175 US school-age children (5 to18 years old) with Cantonese, Mandarin, or Korean as their heritage language (HL), and English as their dominant language. Primary study goals were to identify potential patterns of development in bilingual lexical skills over the elementary to high school time span and to examine the relation of environmental factors to lexical skills. HL and English productive lexical skills were assessed with a Picture Naming and a Verbal Fluency task. English receptive lexical skills were assessed with Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. A survey obtained information about participants’ language use in six environmental contexts. There were age-related significant increases in both HL and English skills. However, English proficiency already had a significant lead over HL proficiency at the youngest age. English receptive lexical skills reached monolingual expectations from age 8, whereas for HL, high school age participants on average only reached the level of early elementary school monolinguals. Although more English use at home at younger ages was associated with stronger English skills, the relation did not exist for older participants. Instead, among older participants, more English use at home was associated with weaker HL skills. Children’s attendance at HL programs and visits to home countries bore little relation to HL proficiency.

Phonological assessment and analysis of bilingual preschoolers' Spanish and English word productions

PURPOSE

The major purpose of this study was to examine Spanish and English phonological productions (patterns/deviations) of typically developing bilingual preschool children. Phonological scores were compared in order to determine if significant differences exist between (a) boys and girls, (b) 4- and 5-year-olds, and/or (c) their productions of Spanish and English words.

METHOD

Fifty-six bilingual 4- and 5-year-old children (27 boys and 29 girls) who attended Head Start programs named stimulus items for Spanish and English phonological assessment instruments that were similar in procedures and analyses.

RESULTS

Multivariate analyses indicated no significant differences for phonological scores between boys and girls or between the 2 languages. Differences between the 4- and 5-year-olds, however, were significant, with the 5-year-olds performing better than the 4-year-olds. Liquid deviations and omissions of consonants in clusters/sequences were the most frequently occurring phonological deviations.

CONCLUSIONS

Phonological score differences between typically developing bilingual Spanish-English-speaking preschool boys and girls from similar backgrounds are not likely to be significant. Better phonological scores, however, can be expected for 5-year-olds than for 4-year-olds. Moreover, phonological deviation percentage scores of typically developing bilingual children for comparable Spanish and English assessment instruments are likely to be similar.

The Cognitive Development of Young Dual Language Learners: A Critical Review

Dual language exposure and bilingualism are relatively common experiences for children. The present review set out to synthesize the existing research on cognitive development in bilingual children and to identify the gaps and the methodological concerns present in the existing research. A search of major data bases for research conducted with typically-developing, preschool-age dual language learners between 2000-2013 yielded 102 peer-reviewed articles. The existing evidence points to areas of cognitive development in bilingual children where findings are robust or inconclusive, and reveals variables that influence performance. The present review also identifies areas for future research and methodological limitations.

A longitudinal study of lexical development in children learning Vietnamese and English

This longitudinal study modeled lexical development among children who spoke Vietnamese as a first language (L1) and English as a second language (L2). Participants (n = 33, initial mean age of 7.3 years) completed a total of eight tasks (four in each language) that measured vocabulary knowledge and lexical processing at four yearly time points. Multivariate hierarchical linear modeling was used to calculate L1 and L2 trajectories within the same model for each task. Main findings included (a) positive growth in each language, (b) greater gains in English resulting in shifts toward L2 dominance, and (c) different patterns for receptive and expressive domains. Timing of shifts to L2 dominance underscored L1 skills that are resilient and vulnerable to increases in L2 proficiency.

The measure matters: Language dominance profiles across measures in Spanish-English bilingual children

The purpose of this study was to determine if different language measures resulted in the same classifications of language dominance and proficiency for a group of bilingual pre-kindergarteners and kindergarteners. Data were analyzed for 1029 Spanish-English bilingual pre-kindergarteners who spanned the full range of bilingual language proficiency. Parent questionnaires were used to quantify age of first exposure and current language use. Scores from a short test of semantic and morphosyntactic development in Spanish and English were used to quantify children's performance. Some children who were in the functionally monolingual range based on interview data demonstrated minimal knowledge of their other languages when tested. Current use accounted for more of the variance in language dominance than did age of first exposure. Results indicate that at different levels of language exposure children differed in their performance on semantic and morphosyntax tasks. These patterns suggest that it may be difficult to compare the results of studies that employ different measures of language dominance and proficiency. Current use is likely to be a useful metric of bilingual development that can be used to build a comprehensive picture of child bilingualism.

Item-level psychometrics and predictors of performance for Spanish/English bilingual speakers on an object and action naming battery

PURPOSE

There is a pressing need for psychometrically sound naming materials for Spanish/English bilingual adults. To address this need, in this study the authors examined the psychometric properties of An Object and Action Naming Battery (An O&A Battery; Druks & Masterson, 2000) in bilingual speakers.

METHOD

Ninety-one Spanish/English bilinguals named O&A Battery items in English and Spanish. Responses underwent a Rasch analysis. Using correlation and regression analyses, the authors evaluated the effect of psycholinguistic (e.g., imageability) and participant (e.g., proficiency ratings) variables on accuracy.

RESULTS

Rasch analysis determined unidimensionality across English and Spanish nouns and verbs and robust item-level psychometric properties, evidence for content validity. Few items did not fit the model, there were no ceiling or floor effects after uninformative and misfit items were removed, and items reflected a range of difficulty. Reliability coefficients were high, and the number of statistically different ability levels provided indices of sensitivity. Regression analyses revealed significant correlations between psycholinguistic variables and accuracy, providing preliminary construct validity. The participant variables that contributed most to accuracy were proficiency ratings and time of language use.

CONCLUSIONS

Results suggest adequate content and construct validity of O&A items retained in the analysis for Spanish/English bilingual adults and support future efforts to evaluate naming in older bilinguals and persons with bilingual aphasia.

Bilingual children with primary language impairment: issues, evidence and implications for clinical actions

A clear understanding of how to best provide clinical serves to bilingual children with suspected or confirmed primary language impairment (PLI) is predicated on understanding typical development in dual-language learners as well as the PLI profile. This article reviews general characteristics of children learning two languages, including three that challenge the diagnosis and treatment of PLI; uneven distribution of abilities in the child's two languages, cross-linguistic associations within bilingual learners, and individual variation in response to similar social circumstances. The diagnostic category of PLI (also referred to in the literature as specific language impairment or SLI) is described with attention to how language impairment, in the face of otherwise typical development, manifests in children learning two languages. Empirical evidence related to differential diagnosis of PLI in bilingual children is then reviewed and issues related to the generalization of treatment gains in dual-language learners with PLI are introduced.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

As a result of this activity, the careful reader will be able to (1) describe general characteristics of typically developing dual-language learners, (2) explain how primary language impairment (PLI) manifests in bilingual children, and (3) identify key clinical issues and approaches to assessment and treatment on bilingual PLI.

English past tense use as a clinical marker in older bilingual children with language impairment

This study compared the use of English past tense in a group of Spanish-English bilingual children with language impairment (BLI) to younger groups of bilinguals with typical and atypical language development reported in an earlier study. Ten children with BLI enrolled in 3rd-6th grade participated. Children supplied 12 regular, 12 irregular, and 12 novel past tense verbs on an elicitation task. The results demonstrated that despite 2.5 years of school exposure, older children with BLI still lagged in the production of regular and novel past tense verbs when compared to the younger typically developing (TD) controls. Although the rates of productive errors on irregular verbs increased, the older students nonetheless failed to achieve rates of over-regularization comparable to the younger TD group. These data extend earlier findings regarding the exceptional challenge of past tense use, particularly with respect to finite verb morphology in certain children with BLI. These challenges, combined with similarities between monolingual and bilingual impairment, are largely compatible with a linguistic deficit account.

Primary or "specific" language impairment and children learning a second language

We review empirical findings from children with primary or "specific" language impairment (PLI) and children who learn a single language from birth (L1) and a second language (L2) beginning in childhood. The PLI profile is presented in terms of both language and nonlinguistic features. The discussion of L2 learners emphasizes variable patterns of growth and skill distribution in L1 and L2 which complicate the identification of PLI in linguistically diverse learners. We then introduce our research program, designed to map out common ground and potential fault lines between typically developing children learning one or two languages, as compared to children with PLI.

Young L2 learners' performance on a novel morpheme task

The teaching of an invented language rule has been proposed as a possible non-biased, language-independent assessment technique useful in differentiating young L2 learners with specific language impairment from their typically developing peers. The current study explores these notions by testing typically developing sequential bilingual children's ability to learn an invented language rule in either L1 (Spanish) or L2 (English). Participants were 20 children, age 3:6-5:8, who attended a Head Start programme. For all children, Spanish was the primary language spoken in the home and English was the primary language of instruction. Children were randomly assigned two groups. Group L1 was taught the novel language rule in Spanish; Group L2 was taught the novel language rule in English. Performance was better for the L1 group than for the L2 group. Moreover, not all of these typical language learners were able to learn the new rule, even in their strongest language. These findings suggest that even for typically developing children, specific language proficiency as well as individual differences are closely linked to performance on this novel morpheme learning task.