Is There a Cognate Effect in Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder?

Abstract

Purpose: Cognates, words in two languages that share form and meaning, can be used to support vocabulary development in bilingual children. Typically developing bilinguals have shown better performance on cognates versus noncognates. Of key interest is whether bilinguals with developmental language disorder (DLD) also show a cognate effect and, if so, which factors are related to their cognate performance. Method: Thirty-five Spanish–English bilingual children (5–11 years old) with DLD completed the Expressive and Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Tests, third edition, in English (EOW, ROW) to measure cognate performance. Test items were divided by difficulty level (easy, medium, and hard) and classified as cognates or noncognates using the Cross-Linguistic Overlap Scale for Phonology. Results: On average, children showed clear and robust cognate effects on EOW across difficulty levels with medium-to-large effect sizes. Results on the ROW showed minimal effects that varied by difficulty. Individually, 80% of participants (28 of 35) demonstrated a cognate effect in EOW, whereas only 31% (11 of 35) showed an effect in ROW. A cognate effect in ROW was positively correlated with age and English proficiency, whereas no factors correlated with the EOW cognate effect. Conclusions: Bilingual children with DLD show higher performance on cognates than noncognates, at least in expressive vocabulary. Participants who did show a receptive cognate effect tended to be older and have higher English proficiency. Further investigation is needed to identify factors underlying cognate performance in order to tailor intervention strategies that promote bilingual vocabulary development.

Explicit cognate instruction facilitates vocabulary learning by foreign language learners with developmental language disorder

“…The participants performed better on cognates than noncognates, and this relationship was the same for beginning learners (Grade 4) and learners with one or two years of prior experience with English lessons (Grades 5–6). These results are consonant with earlier findings revealing cognate facilitation effects in children with DLD (Grasso et al, 2018; Kohnert et al, 2004; Payesteh and Pham, 2022; Tribushinina et al, 2023). Our results do not support earlier proposals that cross-language transfer is not available to children with DLD (Blom and Paradis, 2015; Ebert et al, 2014).…”

“…Is it necessary to teach cognates explicitly and to apply teaching interventions enhancing cognate awareness? On the one hand, children with and without DLD have been shown to perform better on cognates than on noncognates without any prior instruction raising cognate awareness (Grasso et al, 2018; Kohnert et al, 2004; Payesteh and Pham, 2022; Tribushinina et al, 2023), which may suggest that explicit cognate instruction is less of a priority in FL lessons. On the other hand, researchers have expressed the desirability of cognate interventions (August et al, 2005; Payesteh and Pham, 2022), based on insights from intervention studies demonstrating that bilinguals are more likely to use cognate strategies and to recognize more cognates after explicit cognate instruction (Dressler et al, 2011; Garcia et al, 2020).…”

“…Therefore, children with DLD can benefit from additional support in learning L2/FL vocabulary. Secondly, even though children with DLD seem sensitive to cognate relations and perform better on L2 words having L1 cognates (Grasso et al, 2018; Kohnert et al, 2004; Payesteh and Pham, 2022; Tribushinina et al, 2023), there are also indications that positive L1 transfer may be less available to L2/FL learners with DLD than to typically-developing peers (Blom and Paradis, 2015; Tribushinina et al, 2020). Thirdly, evidence is accumulating that explicit metalinguistic interventions facilitate language production and comprehension in children with DLD (Balthazar et al, 2020; Ebbels, 2014).…”