Introduction to the special issue: early literacy among monolingual and bilingual children

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-611
Author(s):  
Shelley Shaul ◽  
Mark Leikin
Keyword(s):  
Early Literacy ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Special Issue

Bilingualism matters

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole
Keyword(s):  
Birth Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
The Family ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
Future Work

The articles in this special issue provide a complex picture of acquisition in bilinguals in which the factors that contribute to patterns of performance in bilingual children’s two languages are myriad and diverse. The processes and contours of development in bilingual children are influenced, not only by the quantity, quality, and contexts of input, but by whether the child hears monolingual or bilingual speech, who is the source of that speech, the proportion of speakers of the heritage language in the community, the child’s birth order in the family, the family’s SES, the timing and the child’s stage of development, profile effects in performance, and characteristics of the languages being learned. One constant across the research is the finding that the majority language fairs well in development, while the minority language is threatened. The insights gained are relevant to future work on bilingual children, whether of a theoretical or applied focus.

Narratives of Russian–German preschool and primary school bilinguals: Rasskaz and Erzaehlung

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATALIA GAGARINA
Keyword(s):  
Early Literacy ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Three Components

ABSTRACTThe goal of this study was to trace the dual language development of the narrative macrostructure in three age groups of Russian–German bilingual children and to compare the performance of simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. Fine-grained analyses of macrostructure included three components: story structure, story complexity, and internal state terms. Oral narratives were elicited via the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. Fifty-eight Russian–German speaking bilingual children from three age groups participated: preschoolers (mean age = 45 months) and elementary school pupils (mean age first grade = 84 months, mean age third grade = 111 months); and there were 34 simultaneous and 24 sequential bilinguals. The results showed significant improvement for all three components of macrostructure between the preschool and first-grade period. Additional significant development from first to third graders was found only for story complexity in Russian. This is explained by the Russian curriculum explicitly teaching narrative skills during early literacy training. In the two older groups, simultaneous bilinguals showed advantages over sequential bilinguals, for story complexity only. This finding suggests considering bilingual type when evaluating narrative skills of bilinguals. The results indicate cross-language association of only some components of narrative score across languages. The findings support the examination of various constituents of macrostructure when evaluating its development as well as the progression of narrative skills.

Some notes on language, memory and bilingualism

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-490
Author(s):  
Maria Teresa Guasti
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Linear Dimension ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Language Problems ◽  
Per Se

In this commentary on the Special Issue, I will address the question of what memory spans measure concerning language, as language has, at least, a linear and a hierarchical dimension. I suggest that if anything what is measured has to do with the linear dimension. Then, I will discuss the welcome results on bilingual children with language problems and reflect on what it means that working memory measures seem to be more relevant for bilingual children than for monolingual ones. I will tentatively suggest that what is at stake is not memory per se, but inhibitory skills.

Special issue on emergent grammars in bilingual children

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth van der Linden ◽  
Aafke Hulk
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Special Issue

Factors Influencing Cognate Performance for Young Multilingual Children's Vocabulary: A Research Synthesis

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 2170-2188
Author(s):  
Lindsey R. Squires ◽  
Sara J. Ohlfest ◽  
Kristen E. Santoro ◽  
Jennifer L. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Test Validity ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
High Quality Research ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Word Characteristics ◽  
Study Inclusion ◽  
Task Level

Purpose The purpose of this systematic review was to determine evidence of a cognate effect for young multilingual children (ages 3;0–8;11 [years;months], preschool to second grade) in terms of task-level and child-level factors that may influence cognate performance. Cognates are pairs of vocabulary words that share meaning with similar phonology and/or orthography in more than one language, such as rose – rosa (English–Spanish) or carrot – carotte (English–French). Despite the cognate advantage noted with older bilingual children and bilingual adults, there has been no systematic examination of the cognate research in young multilingual children. Method We conducted searches of multiple electronic databases and hand-searched article bibliographies for studies that examined young multilingual children's performance with cognates based on study inclusion criteria aligned to the research questions. Results The review yielded 16 articles. The majority of the studies (12/16, 75%) demonstrated a positive cognate effect for young multilingual children (measured in higher accuracy, faster reaction times, and doublet translation equivalents on cognates as compared to noncognates). However, not all bilingual children demonstrated a cognate effect. Both task-level factors (cognate definition, type of cognate task, word characteristics) and child-level factors (level of bilingualism, age) appear to influence young bilingual children's performance on cognates. Conclusions Contrary to early 1990s research, current researchers suggest that even young multilingual children may demonstrate sensitivity to cognate vocabulary words. Given the limits in study quality, more high-quality research is needed, particularly to address test validity in cognate assessments, to develop appropriate cognate definitions for children, and to refine word-level features. Only one study included a brief instruction prior to assessment, warranting cognate treatment studies as an area of future need. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12753179

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