A Longitudinal Study of Spanish Language Growth and Loss in Young Spanish-English Bilingual Children

Hiebert, Lindsey; Rojas, Raúl

doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2021.106110

Cited by 18 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Considering that SI, WPM, and NSS measure gross language constructs beyond vocabulary, removing code-switched words out of their productive context results in measures not representative of the constructs they intend to measure. A previous study found that including or excluding code-switching when calculating MATTR produced different values within the same group of samples (Hiebert & Rojas, 2021). In order to avoid inflating MATTR, we excluded code-switched words when calculating MATTR.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dual Language Profiles in Spanish-Speaking English Learners

Rojas

Iglesias

2022

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify and describe latent dual language profiles in a large sample of school-age Spanish–English bilingual children designated as English learners (ELs) by their school district. Method: Data for this study include 847 Spanish-speaking ELs from kindergarten to third grade. Spanish and English narrative retell language samples were collected from all participants. Four oral language measures were calculated in Spanish and English, including the subordination index, moving average type–token ratio, narrative structure scheme (NSS), and words per minute using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcript. These indicator measures were used in a latent profile analysis to identify dual language profiles. Results: The optimal model represents a four-profile solution, including a Spanish-dominant group (average Spanish, low English), an English-dominant group (low Spanish, average English), and two balanced groups (a balanced-average group and a balanced-high group). Additionally, participants displayed uneven performance across language domains and distinct patterns of unique strength or weakness in a specific domain in one of their two languages. Conclusions: Findings from this study highlight the large variability in English and Spanish oral language abilities in school-age Spanish-speaking ELs and suggest that a dichotomous classification of ELs versus English-proficient students may not be sufficient to determine the type of educational program that best fits a specific bilingual child's need. These findings highlight the need to assess both languages across multiple language domains to paint a representative picture of a bilingual child's language abilities. The dual language profiles identified may be used to guide the educational program selection process to improve the congruence among the linguistic needs of an individual child, teachers' use of instructional language, and the goals of the educational program (i.e., improving English proficiency vs. supporting dual language development). Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20151836

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent study has shown that Spanish-English bilingual children in English-immersion programs demonstrated loss of Spanish syntactic and vocabulary skills (Hiebert & Rojas, 2021).…”

Section: Spanish-english Dual Language Profiles 36mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dual Language Profiles in Spanish-Speaking English Learners

Rojas

Iglesias

2022

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…Half of 89 mothers of sequential bilinguals aged 4;2 to 5;6 in Canada with SocL-English and a variety of different HLs reported “attrition in their child’s L1 abilities and a preference for English compared to the L1” ( Sorenson Duncan and Paradis, 2020 , p. 52). A three-year longitudinal study of HL lexical and grammatical development in 34 HL-Spanish bilingual children in the USA who were on average aged 4;2 at the beginning of the study showed many patterns, including HL growth as well as HL attrition and loss, with some children hardly being able to speak the HL by age seven, although they spoke the SocL fluently ( Hiebert and Rojas, 2021 ). The fact that HL performance can decline with age was also shown by Armon-Lotem et al (2021) , who found that older (ages 6;0–6;5) HL-English children in Israel scored worse on monolingual-based English tests than younger (ages 5;0–5;5 and 5;6–5;11) peers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polish-German preschoolers develop and use heritage Polish differently depending on whether they heard German from birth or not

Houwer¹

2023

Front. Psychol.

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This study assessed the language proficiency and use of a hitherto under-investigated group, viz., 3.5-year-olds growing up with Polish as a heritage language and German as societal language. All children (N = 28) heard Polish from birth in the home but half the children also heard German from birth (Bilingual First Language Acquisition, BFLA) while the other half added German through preschool (Early Second Language Acquisition, ESLA). All children attended German preschools. Data collection relied on an online survey filled out by 28 mothers and 20 fathers. There were large discrepancies between parental answers to general versus detailed questions regarding language use (choice) amongst parents and children. This has important repercussions for much of questionnaire based bilingualism research. Children were developing productive language as expected but BFLA preschoolers spoke German better or spoke both languages equally well whereas ESLA preschoolers spoke Polish better. Apart from BFLA children’s much longer and daily exposure to German from birth, these BFLA-ESLA differences in relative Polish proficiency may relate to different current patterns of language choice, with (1) Polish less present in parent–child interactions involving BFLA than ESLA preschoolers, and with (2) BFLA but not ESLA preschoolers mostly hearing Polish from just a single parent. The BFLA-ESLA difference thus made a difference to children’s heritage Polish development and use already at age 3.5.

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“…Prior work by the same team has found that in Spanish–English bilingual children who were exposed to balanced dual-language input, as early as 2 years of age, their English skills started to develop more rapidly than their Spanish skills (Hoff & Ribot, 2017). The presence of an English-dominant profile but not a Spanish-dominant profile in this study indirectly reflects that when an asymmetry between the two languages is evident, the attainment and maintenance of the minority status language might be vulnerable (Gathercole & Thomas, 2009; Hiebert & Rojas, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Receptive dual-language profiles in Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers.

Su,

Rojas,

de Villiers

et al. 2024

Journal of Educational Psychology

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Bilingual children demonstrate varying levels of proficiency in each of the two languages to which they are exposed. Even though it is widely acknowledged that bilingual children are not a homogenous group, existing studies on dual-language profiles in bilingual children have focused on expressive language profiles. In this study, we used the normative data from the Quick Interactive Language Screener: English–Spanish (QUILS:ES; de Villiers et al., 2021; Iglesias et al., 2021) and latent profile analysis to identify dual-language profiles in receptive language skills in a large sample of Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers. We also examined demographic, dual-language experience, and home literacy environment factors that contributed to receptive dual-language profile membership. The optimal model represents a three-profile solution, including a balanced-low profile, an English-dominant average profile, and a balanced-high profile. Comparing participants’ profile membership against their age and risk status for language impairment based on the QUILS:ES screening results, we found that while being in an older age group significantly increases a child’s likelihood of being in a balanced-high profile, an older child displaying a balanced-low profile is at a higher risk for language impairment. Age, socioeconomic status, and home literacy environment factors were found to be associated with strong dual-language skills, whereas (relative) dual-language experience did not predict profile membership. Together, these findings extend previous work that examined the heterogeneity within Spanish–English bilingual children by demonstrating substantial variability in their receptive language skills and providing insights into malleable factors that may be targeted to support dual-language development.

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A Longitudinal Study of Spanish Language Growth and Loss in Young Spanish-English Bilingual Children

Cited by 18 publications

References 44 publications

Dual Language Profiles in Spanish-Speaking English Learners

Dual Language Profiles in Spanish-Speaking English Learners

Polish-German preschoolers develop and use heritage Polish differently depending on whether they heard German from birth or not

Receptive dual-language profiles in Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers.

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