Foreign language learning is generally not required in the United States, despite its link to various cognitive and social benefits later in life. Students who speak a home language different from the instructional language of school may experience unique benefits when learning additional languages in school. The present study examined whether students' early language status (monolingual, dual language learner [DLL], or bilingual) in Kindergarten predicts later foreign language course enrollment and performance in middle and high school. A total of 33,247 students (48% female, 59% Latino, 34% Black, 7% White/ Asian/other, 82% receiving free/reduced-price lunch) were assessed for school readiness at age 4 and prospectively followed through high school. Regression analyses predicted foreign language course enrollment and performance in middle or high school, with students' demographic, school readiness, and prior academic performance as covariates. Results show early language status significantly predicts later enrollment and performance in foreign language courses, even after controlling for student demographics, school readiness skills, and early academic achievement. Early bilinguals were more likely to take foreign language courses than DLLs, who enrolled in such courses more than monolingual students. The same pattern favoring bilinguals, then DLLs, then monolinguals was found for performance in foreign language courses. Early bilingualism is an important resource for young children that continues to offer benefits throughout schooling. Implications for heritage language maintenance, language learning, and bilingual education are discussed.

There is a growing body of evidence based on adult neuroimaging that suggests that the brain adapts to bilingual experiences to support language proficiency. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is a useful source of data for evaluating this claim during childhood, as it involves data from a large sample of American children. Using the baseline ABCD Study data collected at ages nine and ten, the goal of this study was to identify differences in cortical thickness between bilinguals and monolinguals and to evaluate how variability in English vocabulary and English use within bilinguals might explain these group differences. We identified bilingual participants as children who spoke a non-English language and were exposed to the non-English language at home. We then identified a matched sample of English monolingual participants based on age, sex, pubertal status, parent education, household income, non-verbal IQ, and handedness. Bilinguals had thinner cortex than monolinguals in widespread cortical regions. Within bilinguals, more English use was associated with greater frontal and parietal cortical thickness; greater English vocabulary was associated with greater frontal and temporal cortical thickness. These findings replicate and extend previous research with bilingual children and highlight unexplained cortical thickness differences between bilinguals and monolinguals.

It is widely believed that the location of the cochlear excitation maximum, which has been shown by Békésy to depend on sound frequency and move from the cochlear apex to its base as the frequency increases, is a code for subjective pitch. The pitch of a tone is known to be practically independent of sound intensity. If the location does determine the pitch, it too must remain invariant. At the 1990 meeting of the Collegium held in Basel, however, the first author reported compelling indirect evidence indicating that this may not be true. It suggested that, at least in the mid-portion of the cochlea, the most important for speech frequencies, the maximum moves toward the cochlear base as sound intensity is increased. We now have a direct verification of this inference. Recording alternating Hensen's cell potentials at two or three second-turn locations of each of several Mongolian gerbil cochleas, we observed that the maximum response produced by a single tone moved substantially toward the cochlear base as sound intensity increased. For example, an intensity increment of only 10 dB caused the maximum to move by about 0.225 mm. Since Hensen's cells are known to reflect closely the excitation pattern of the outer hair cells, similar to that of the inner hair cells, the discovery makes it impossible for the cochlear excitation maximum to be an adequate code for pitch. We observed, on the other hand, that the apical excitation cut-off did not depend on sound intensity. Every cochlear location investigated had its invariant characteristic cut-off frequency. It is possible, therefore, that the cut-off location provides the place code for pitch. These findings may have profound consequences for our understanding of auditory mechanisms as well as for the technology of cochlear implants.

The nature of word etymology, long a topic of interest in linguistics, has been considered to a much lesser extent in the word recognition literature. The present study created a database of overlapping words from the English Lexicon Project (ELP) and a database with the age of acquisition (AoA) norms which were categorized as either Germanic or Latin-based. Results revealed that Germanic words were learned earlier than Latin-based words. Germanic words also showed slower reaction times and higher accuracy relative to Latin-based words even when controlling for AoA, word frequency, and length. Additionally, analyses were conducted using a publicly available database that used the English Crowdsourcing Project (ECP) data with native and second language (L2) English speakers. The results with native speakers were similar to those collected with the ELP. However, nonnative speakers showed better accuracy and faster reaction times for Latin-based words compared to Germanic words. The findings support a bidialectal view of English in that Germanic words serve as the base of lexical processing during childhood, whereas Latin-based words fill in the lexical space across adolescence and into early adulthood. Furthermore, L2 speakers appear to acquire English via more advanced Latin-based vocabulary relative to native speakers. These results carry implications for theories of word recognition and the processing of lexical items in populations that come from linguistically diverse backgrounds.

IntroductionWhile a growing body of research indicates that Spanish language courses can promote Spanish maintenance and lead to overall improved educational outcomes among heritage speakers, there is little empirical or longitudinal evidence of factors that shape their enrollment in Spanish language courses at the secondary level. To address this issue, the current study takes a large-scale, longitudinal approach to investigate rates of enrollment in secondary school (6th–12th grade) Spanish and other non-English language courses, as well as factors that predict heritage speakers’ enrollment and performance in non-English language courses.MethodWe analyzed subsample data from the Miami School Readiness Project (MSRP), a large-scale, longitudinal study consisting of 17,341 heritage speakers of Spanish (47% female, 95.4% Hispanic/Latino, 82.8% received free/reduced-price lunch, and 18.3% with a disability) who were followed from 4 years old until the end of high school.ResultsIn general, Heritage speakers enrolled in Spanish language courses at a higher rate than other non-English language courses (52.2 and 25.3%, respectively). Enrollment patterns varied across different type of languages and grade level. Student-level factors including disability status, poverty status, early behavioral problems, and prior academic achievement significantly predicted students’ enrollment in Spanish and performance in non-English language courses.DiscussionFindings shed light on the long-term patterns of language study of this growing segment of the US school population with implications for future research and school policies that seek to improve heritage language learning and maintenance as well as equitable access to language education for language-minority students.