Purpose: This study used structural equation modeling to investigate the dimensionality of language in Spanish-English bilingual kindergartners. Five theoretical models were compared, including (a) a unidimensional model; (b) a two-dimensional model by language (Spanish, English); (c) a three-dimensional model by domain of language (phonology,…

Purpose: There are well-established links between oral language and reading development in monolingual English-speaking children that are associated with literacy outcomes. Oral language, defined relative to lexical quality, provides key support for developing early reading skills. For bilingual children, the connection between oral language and…

Aims: We investigate the relationship between narrative macrostructure, current language exposure, and microstructure in second-grade Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States. Macrostructure knowledge has been claimed to be shared across languages in multilingual individuals. We examine the role of current language exposure and…

In 4 word-translation experiments, we examined the different representational frameworks theory (Crutch & Warrington, 2005; 2010) that concrete words are represented primarily by category, whereas abstract words are represented by association. In our experiments, Chinese-English bilingual speakers were presented with an auditory Chinese word…

The purpose of the current study was to explore the influence of language experience on the presence of the receptive-expressive gap. Each of 778 Spanish-English bilingual children screened pre-kindergarten in Utah and Texas were assigned to one of five language experience groups, ranging from functionally monolingual to balanced bilingual.…

This study examines semantic development in 60 Spanish-English bilingual children, ages 7 years 3 months to 9 years 11 months, who differed orthogonally in age (younger, older) and language experience (higher English experience [HEE], higher Spanish experience [HSE]). Children produced 3 associations to 12 pairs of translation equivalents. Older…

Processing semantically related stimuli creates interference across various domains of cognition, including language and memory. In this study, we identify the locus and mechanism of interference when retrieving meanings associated with words and pictures. Subjects matched a probe stimulus (e.g., cat) to its associated target picture (e.g., yarn)…

This study aims at providing a comprehensive account of the types of errors produced by Arab students of English as a second language based on a multiple classificatory taxonomy developed for this purpose. The corpus providing the database for the study consists of three parts: (i) short tape-recorded interviews, (ii) translated sentences and…

Purpose: This study documents the risk for language impairment in Latino children who had different levels of exposure to English and Spanish. Method: A total of 1,029 preschool- and kindergarten-age children were screened in the domains of semantics and morphosyntax in both Spanish and English. Parent report was used to document current exposure…

Background: Nonword repetition (NWR) involves the ability to perceive, store, recall and reproduce phonological sequences. These same abilities play a role in word and morpheme learning. Cross-linguistic studies of performance on NWR tasks, word learning, and morpheme learning yield patterns of increased performance on all three tasks as a…

Purpose: In this study, the authors examined how signal clarity interacts with the use of sentence context information in determining speech-in-noise recognition for children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing. Method: One hundred and twenty sentences in which the final word varied in predictability (high vs. low semantic…

This study examined the +/- presence of Spanish subject personal pronouns ("yo," "el/ella," "nosotros/nosotras," and "ellos/ellas" ) in sociolinguistic interviews of 36 Mexican-Americans from Houston, Texas (16 of 2nd generation and 20 of 3rd generation), and 20 Mexicans (control group) from Heroica…

This study investigated how lexical access in naming tasks (picture naming, naming to open-ended sentences, and naming to category exemplars) might be influenced by different lexical factors during adolescence and adulthood. Participants included 1075 individuals, ranging in age from 12 to 83 years. Lexical factors examined included word frequency…

The following award-winning dissertations in bilingual education are included here: (1) "The 1974 Bilingual Education Amendments: Revolution, Reaction, or Reform" by Susan Gilbert Schneider; (2) "(Memory Organization, Bilingualism, and Interlingual Interference: A Comparative Analysis of the Semantic Distance and Semantic Judgment…

Study of East and West Texans' (N=62) use of double modals as single lexical items and their syntactic and semantic characteristics found that neither Aux nor subcategorization analysis could account for both single-modal and double-modal dialects. Double modals, however, could conceivably be analyzed as two-word lexical items such as idioms or…