Lexical Development in Bilingual Infants and Toddlers: Comparison to Monolingual Norms

Abstract

This study compares lexical development in a sample of 25 simultaneous bilingual and 35 monolingual children for whom semilongitudinal data were collected between the ages of 8 and 30 months. A standardized parent report form, the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (1989), was used to assess the children's receptive and productive vocabulary in English and/or Spanish. A methodology was devised to assess the degree of overlap between the bilingual children's lexical knowledge in one language and their knowledge in the other. Using the measures presented here, there was no statistical basis for concluding that the bilingual children were slower to develop early vocabulary than was the monolingual comparison group. The wide range of vocabulary sizes observed at these ages in normally developing children (Fenson et al., 1991) was observed in these bilingual children as well. The close correspondence of the pattern of the bilinguals' growth in two languages at once to monolinguals' growth in one suggests that norms for lexical development in bilinguals should be made with reference to the children's performance in two languages together.

Working memory in multilingual children: Is there a bilingual effect?

“…Bilinguals have also been found to perform significantly better than monolinguals on measures of task switching (Bialystok & Martin, 2004;Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008). In contrast, on standardized measures of vocabulary young bilinguals frequently perform at lower levels than their monolingual peers, especially if only one of their languages is considered (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008;Namazi & Thordardottir, 2010;Pearson, Fernández, & Oller, 1995;Thordardottir, Rothenberg, Rivard, & Naves, 2006). One important cognitive mechanism that has been consistently linked to cognitive control is working memory.…”

Lessons From Research for Les Familles Exogames: A Literature Review

“…For example, this difference was noted in three studies: the first for infants and toddlers exposed to Spanish and English (Pearson et al, 1993); the second for toddlers exposed to German and English (Junker & Stockman, 2002); and the third for 5-year-olds exposed to English and French (Thordardottir, 2011).…”

“…There is a significant difference in expressive vocabulary for these children when comparing the vocabulary of one of the languages to their monolingual counterparts (Junker & Stockman, 2002;Pearson, Fernández, & Oller, 1993;Thordardottir, 2011). For example, this difference was noted in three studies: the first for infants and toddlers exposed to Spanish and English (Pearson et al, 1993); the second for toddlers exposed to German and English (Junker & Stockman, 2002); and the third for 5-year-olds exposed to English and French (Thordardottir, 2011).…”

“…Further, the pooled expressive vocabulary of both languages was equivalent to that of monolingual children. Pearson, Fernández, and Oller (1993) explain it this way:…”

Bilingual Memory: A Lifespan Approach

“…Since bilingual children use their two languages in different contexts, a bilingual child may not have as large a vocabulary in each of the languages as an age-matched monolingual child. However, the bilingual child's total vocabulary will usually be larger than that of the monolingual child (Pearson, Fernandez, & Oller, 1993;see Bialystok, 2001, for a review).…”