Phonological Skills in Predominantly English-Speaking, Predominantly Spanish-Speaking, and Spanish-English Bilingual Children

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian A. Goldstein ◽  
Leah Fabiano ◽  
Patricia Swasey Washington
Keyword(s):  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Phonological Skills ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose: There is a paucity of information detailing the phonological skills of Spanish-English bilingual children and comparing that information to information concerning the phonological skills of predominantly English-speaking (PE) and predominantly Spanish-speaking (PS) children. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between amount of output (i.e., percentage of time each language was spoken) in each language and phonological skills in Spanish-English bilingual children and PE and PS children. Method: Fifteen typically developing children, ranging in age from 5;0 (years;months) to 5;5 (mean=5;2), participated in the study. The participants consisted of 5 PE speakers, 5 PS speakers, and 5 bilingual (Spanish-English) speakers. A single-word assessment was used to gather information on phonological skills (consonant accuracy, type and frequency of substitutions, frequency of occurrence of phonological patterns [e.g., cluster reduction], accuracy of syllable types [e.g., CV, CVC, CCV, etc.]), and type and rate of cross-linguistic effects. Results: The results indicated that there was no significant correlation between amount of output in each language and phonological skills either in the Spanish skills of PS children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers or in the English skills of PE children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers. In addition, there was no significant difference in segmental accuracy, syllabic accuracy, or percentage of occurrence of phonological patterns between either the Spanish skills of PS children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers or the English skills of PE children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers. Finally, the children showed a limited number of cross-linguistic effects. Clinical Implications: Results from this study indicate no link between parent estimates of language output and phonological skill and demonstrate that Spanish-English bilingual children will have commensurate, although not identical, phonological skills as compared to age-matched PS and PE children.

Nasometric Comparison Between Spanish–English Bilingual and English Monolingual Children

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie L. Perry ◽  
Katelyn Kotlarek ◽  
Lucia Mendez ◽  
Yolanda Holt ◽  
Stephen Fafulas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Significance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Bilingual Group

Objective: It is well established in the literature that English diagnostic tests should not be directly applied to speakers whose primary language is Spanish. Normative nasalance data across word and sentence-level stimuli among Spanish–English bilingual children living in the United States have not been provided. The present study aims to (1) compare differences in nasalance between typically developing Spanish–English bilingual children and English-speaking monolingual children and (2) determine whether within-speaker nasalance differences exist in Spanish–English bilingual children when presented with English and Spanish speech stimuli. Design: Thirty-four typically developing children including 17 monolingual English speakers and 17 Spanish–English bilingual speakers with normal velopharyngeal anatomy between 5 and 7 years of age participated in the study. Speakers were recorded using a nasometer producing sets of stimulus items at the word and sentence level in English (English monolinguals) and in both Spanish and English for bilingual children. Results: Results indicated no statistically significant difference between nasalance values across the different stimuli between monolingual and bilingual participants. However, within-subject effects showed statistical significance between English and Spanish word stimuli among the bilingual group. Conclusions: These findings emphasize the importance of using language-specific diagnostic materials for nasalance testing, which would be of importance in the treatment of individuals with cleft palate.

Positive and negative transfer in the phonological systems of bilingual speakers

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian A. Goldstein ◽  
Ferenc Bunta
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Phonological Skills ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Whole Word

The present study examines the phonological skills of bilingual children, taking language use and proficiency into consideration, and compares their skills to monolingual peers. The main research question is whether bilingual children who have parent-reported language use and proficiency measures commensurate with those of their monolingual peers have phonological skills comparable to their monolingual peers. METHOD. Thirty typically developing Spanish- and English-speaking children participated in this study who were matched on age and language use and proficiency (10 monolingual English, mean age: 5;10; 10 monolingual Spanish, mean age: 5;10, and 10 bilingual, mean age: 6;0). The independent variable was language status (bilingual versus monolingual), and the dependent measures included phonological whole-word measures, segmental accuracy measures, and phonological patterns. RESULTS. Bilingual children did not differ from their monolingual peers on any of the Spanish measures, except on accuracy for stops, on which the monolinguals outperformed their bilingual peers. However, bilingual children outperformed their monolingual English-speaking peers on Proximity, PVC, PCC-R, and PCC for nasals. Moreover, bilingual children displayed lower frequencies-of-occurrence on phonological patterns than their English-speaking monolingual peers: weak syllable deletion, spirantization, and fronting. DISCUSSION. The findings of our study indicate that bilingual children may have an advantage over their monolingual peers when it comes to select phonological skills when language use and proficiency are controlled for.

Lexical decision task for taxonomic and thematic categorization in typically developing Kannada-English-speaking bilingual children

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shilpa Nanjappa ◽  
Sandra Sebastian ◽  
M.S. Deepa
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Taxonomic Relation ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Female Children ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractThe present study investigated the association between the taxonomic, thematic and combined (taxonomic-thematic) conditions during the lexical decision task in Kannada-English speaking bilingual children. Further, the study explored the nature of categorization skills in typically developing Kannada-English speaking bilingual children with respect to the taxonomy and thematic aspects across gender.Considered for the study were 20 preschool children including ten boys and ten girls in the age range of 4–5 years. A total of 50 pictures, including ten target, ten taxonomically related, ten thematically related and 20 distracters were taken from an internet source. Three tasks were introduced to examine the association of the pictures based on taxonomic, thematic and combined conditions. For the first and second task (considered as Experiment I), the children were expected to relate pictures based on taxonomic relationship followed by thematic relationship in the second task. For the final task (Experiment II), both relationships (taxonomic and thematic) were given for each target picture, and the children were expected to relate it with either one of them. Responses were scored and statistically analyzed.There was a significant difference in the performances between male and female children for the taxonomic condition but not for the other two tasks (i.e. thematic and combined conditions). The comparison across three conditions revealed that the performance of those children varied between the conditions. Further, on pair-wise comparison, there was a significant difference for both combined-thematic and combined-taxonomic conditions but not for taxonomic and thematic conditions.The study supports the phenomenon of “thematic to taxonomic shift”, which is found to be emerging in pre-school children. This occurs differently among male and female children. The preferences of thematic relation as opposed to taxonomic relation is highlighted in the present study.

The production of referring expressions in oral narratives of Chinese–English bilingual speakers and monolingual peers

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Chen ◽  
Jianghua Lei
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Chinese And English

This study evaluates the extent to which the production of referring expressions such as noun phrases and pronouns to fulfill various discourse functions in narratives of Chinese–English bilingual children matches that of their monolingual peers in each of the two languages. Spoken narratives in English and Chinese were elicited from 30 9-year-old participants from each of the three groups: Chinese–English bilinguals and their monolingual peers in each of the two languages using the wordless picture book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). Narrative analysis focused on the referring expressions that are used to introduce, re-introduce, and maintain reference to story characters in the narratives. Results show that (1) monolingual Chinese and English speakers differed significantly in the preferred referring expressions for the discourse functions; (2) the Chinese–English bilinguals differed from their monolingual peers in the distribution of referring expressions for referent introduction in English and re-introduction in Chinese; and (3) bilinguals resembled their monolingual peers in their differentiated use of referring expressions for referent maintenance in each of the two languages. These results suggest that the patterns of production of referring expressions in discourse by bilingual speakers may be unique, and fall in between those by their monolingual peers in each of the languages.

Comparison of Spanish, English, and Bilingual Children’s Performance Across Semantic Tasks

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Peña ◽  
Lisa M. Bedore ◽  
Christina Rappazzo
Keyword(s):  
Group Performance ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Assessment Battery ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Insight Into

Purpose: This study investigated predominantly Spanish-speaking, predominantly English-speaking, and Spanish-English bilingual children’s performance on a battery of semantic tasks. Method: Six semantic tasks (associations, characteristic properties, categorization, functions, linguistic concepts, and similarities and differences) were developed in Spanish and English. The tasks contained comparable items but were not direct translations of each other. Each task consisted of expressive and receptive items. Predominantly Spanish-speaking children completed the tasks in Spanish, predominantly English-speaking children completed the tasks in English, and bilingual children completed the tasks in Spanish and English. Results: Children in all three groups achieved similar average levels of performance on the assessment battery. However, there were differences in the patterns of performance for English and Spanish, as well as group performance differences when compared in the same language. Clinical Implications: These findings highlight the importance of testing bilingual children in both of their languages and across a variety of semantic tasks in order to gain insight into bilingual children’s semantic knowledge.

scholarly journals Conceptual Scoring of Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Measures in Simultaneous and Sequential Bilingual Children

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 574-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Gross ◽  
Milijana Buac ◽  
Margarita Kaushanskaya
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Opportunity To Respond ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Expressive Modality ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Language Measures ◽  
The Average Range

Purpose The authors examined the effects of conceptual scoring on the performance of simultaneous and sequential bilinguals on standardized receptive and expressive vocabulary measures in English and Spanish. Method Participants included 40 English-speaking monolingual children, 39 simultaneous Spanish–English bilingual children, and 19 sequential bilingual children, ages 5–7. The children completed standardized receptive and expressive vocabulary measures in English and also in Spanish for those who were bilingual. After the standardized administration, bilingual children were given the opportunity to respond to missed items in their other language to obtain a conceptual score. Results Controlling for group differences in socioeconomic status (SES), both simultaneous and sequential bilingual children scored significantly below monolingual children on single-language measures of English receptive and expressive vocabulary. Conceptual scoring removed the significant difference between monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children in the receptive modality but not in the expressive modality; differences remained between monolingual and sequential bilingual children in both modalities. However, in both bilingual groups, conceptual scoring increased the proportion of children with vocabulary scores within the average range. Conclusion Conceptual scoring does not fully ameliorate the bias inherent in single-language standardized vocabulary measures for bilingual children, but the procedures employed here may assist in ruling out vocabulary deficits, particularly in typically developing simultaneous bilingual children.

scholarly journals Vulnerability of clitics and articles to bilingual effects in typically developing Spanish–English bilingual children

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 825-835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anny Castilla-Earls ◽  
Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux ◽  
Lourdes Martinez-Nieto ◽  
Maria Adelaida Restrepo ◽  
Christopher Barr
Keyword(s):  
English Proficiency ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Object Clitics

AbstractThis study examines bilingual effects in Spanish–English bilingual children with good maintenance of the minority language. The present study compares the performance of a group of Spanish-monolingual children (MON; n = 30) with two groups of Spanish-speaking bilingual children (Low English proficiency group: LEP; n = 36; High English proficiency group, HEP; n = 36) on the elicited productions of Spanish articles and object clitics. Our results suggest that children with LEP performed significantly lower than MON children of the same age on both articles and clitics in Spanish. However, children with HEP, who were a year older on average, performed similarly to the MON group. Both groups of bilingual children produced errors of clitic omission and substitution, but these errors were minimal in the MON group. The results suggest that Spanish clitics and articles are vulnerable to bilingual effects for English/Spanish speaking children with good Spanish maintenance.

An Introductory Examination of Speech Disfluencies in Spanish–English Bilingual Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter During Narratives

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-141
Author(s):  
Cristina Rincon ◽  
Kia Noelle Johnson ◽  
Courtney Byrd
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Criteria ◽  
Preliminary Data ◽  
Diagnostic Information ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Developmental Stuttering ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the frequency and type of speech disfluencies (stuttering-like and nonstuttering-like) in bilingual Spanish–English (SE) children who stutter (CWS) to SE children who do not stutter (CWNS) during narrative samples elicited in Spanish and English to provide further diagnostic information for this population and preliminary data toward an expansion of this study. Method Participants included six bilingual SE children (three CWS, three CWNS) ranging in age from 5 years to 7;5 (years;months) and recruited from the surrounding Houston, Texas area. Participants provided a narrative sample in English and Spanish. The frequency of speech disfluencies was tabulated, and mean length of utterance was measured for each sample. Results Results indicate that both talker groups exceed the diagnostic criteria typically used for developmental stuttering. Regardless of the language being spoken, CWS participants had a frequency of stuttering-like speech disfluencies that met or exceeded the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering that is based on monolingual English speakers. The CWNS participants varied in meeting the criteria depending on the language being spoken, with one of the three CWNS exceeding the criteria in both languages and one exceeding the criteria for percentage of stuttering-like speech disfluencies in one language. Conclusion Findings from this study contribute to the development of more appropriate diagnostic criteria for bilingual SE-speaking children to aid in the reduction of misdiagnoses of stuttering in this population.

Children's Nonword Repetition Tasks and English Language Learners

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-79
Author(s):  
Sara C. Steele ◽  
Deborah A. Hwa-Froelich
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
English Language ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Internationally Adopted Children ◽  
English Speaking

Nonword repetition performance has been shown to differentiate monolingual English-speaking children with language impairment (LI) from typically developing children. These tasks have been administered to monolingual speakers of different languages and to simultaneous and sequential bilingual English Language Learners (ELLs) with mixed results. This article includes a review of the nonword repetition performance of monolingual and bilingual speakers and of internationally adopted children. Clinical implications for administration and interpretation of nonword repetition task outcomes are included.

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