This study examines the language spoken at home based on the academic path and language composition of couples. In particular, the study deals with the adoption or retention of a minority official language in Canada--i.e., English in Quebec and French in the other provinces and territories--as the language spoken most often at home. The study is…

Research Findings: Shared book reading is important for children's early literacy development. Although there is an increasing number of dual language learners, few studies have examined families' shared book reading practices in their two languages. The current study examined Hispanic parents' beliefs and practices during shared reading in…

This paper presents a longitudinal examination of Spanish and English phonological, lexical, and morpho-syntactic abilities in 20 low-SES bilingual preschoolers with mothers who had either completed primary or secondary education in Spanish in their country of origin, Mexico. We focused on the link between maternal education and the following…

The aim of this study is to explore and analyze metaphors constructed around academics, in both the contexts of the UK and Turkey, to see if general opinion on academics seems to be shifting from the well-known 'ivory-tower' reputation, and if the perception differs amongst sub-groups based on their varying amounts of exposure to the reality of…

Purpose: Derivational morphology and compounds are important aspects of academic vocabulary. However, investigation of the development of expressive derivational and compound morphology using language sampling is sparse. This cross-sectional study used three types of language samples to investigate quantitative and qualitative changes in the…

Many children learn language, in part, from the speech of non-native speakers who vary in their language proficiency. To investigate the influence of speaker proficiency on the quality of child-directed speech, 29 mothers who were native English speakers and 31 mothers who were native speakers of Spanish and who reported speaking English to their…

'Education is the key' is often used as a metaphor in remote Australian First Nations communities to indicate the importance of learning to achieve some measure of socio-economic advantage--education is seen as a vehicle for advancement. First Nations people have enthusiastically bought into education and training vehicle. High school completion…

The purpose of this study was to explore parents' perspectives about the special education process during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample consisted of Spanish-speaking and English-speaking parents (N = 102) of children receiving special education services. Results indicated that language (English or Spanish), but not household income or parental…

Some evidence suggests that the home numeracy environment (HNE) is related to children's numeracy. Socioeconomic status (SES) and language minority status can also influence children's HNE and numeracy. Limited HNE research focuses on dual language learners (DLLs). Using a sample of preschool-aged children (n = 98) from low socioeconomic status…

This study compares the performance of native speakers and adult second language (L2) learners on tasks tapping proficiency in grammar, vocabulary, and collocations. In addition, data were collected on several predictors of individual differences in linguistic attainment, including some related to language experience (print exposure, education,…

This study assessed the status of te reo Maori, the indigenous language of New Zealand, in the context of New Zealand English. From a broadly representative sample of 6327 two-year-olds ("Growing Up in New Zealand"), 6090 mothers (96%) reported their children understood English, and 763 mothers (12%) reported their children understood…

"Cunt" is currently one of the most offensive words in the English language and is usually censored in the English press and media. The present study looks firstly at differences between 1159 first (L1) and 1165 foreign (LX) users of English in their perceived understanding of the word, its perceived offensiveness and their self-reported…

The expressive lexical skills of 53 Polish bilinguals aged 24-36 months living in the UK and Ireland were assessed using Polish and British English adaptations of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Polish vocabulary scores were compared to those of 53 Polish monolinguals matched for age, gender and parental education. The…

This study explored individual variability in the bilingual vocabularies of 65 Maltese children aged 23-27 months (N = 33) and 30-34 months (N = 32). Most of the participants' direct input consisted of Maltese sentences embedding English words. Bilingualism was present at the societal level. Word production was measured through parental report,…

This study examines the validity of the current SAT® as a predictor of first-year academic performance and retention to the second year by student and institutional subgroups across more than 223,000 students from 171 four-year institutions. Results show that institutions can feel confident using SAT scores and HSGPA for admission, scholarship,…