The study sought to understand the general trajectory of children's executive function, as well as whether there was heterogeneity among monolingual English-speaking and dual language learning children in their growth of executive function. In addition, the study examined whether monolingual English-speaking and dual language learning children…

Learning always happens from input that contains multiple structures and multiple sources of variability. Though infants possess learning mechanisms to locate structure in the world, lab-based experiments have rarely probed how infants contend with input that contains many different structures and cues. Two experiments explored infants' use of two…

A good deal of research purports that bilingualism has a positive effect on some aspects of cognitive functioning. However, this effect is not consistent, and little research examines trajectories of cognitive skill development in bilingual children. Moreover, it remains unclear whether different types of bilingualism impact how cognitive…

This paper explores the connection between nurses' multilingual beliefs and their advice on multilingual parenting to families with young children. Data was gathered through video-stimulated reflection dialogues with 11 nurses employed at infant welfare clinics in Belgium. Our analysis disclosed two salient counter topics regarding participants'…

Previous research shows that word segmentation is a language-specific skill. Here, we tested segmentation of bi-syllabic words in two languages (French; English) within the same infants in a single test session. In Experiment 1, monolingual 8-month-olds (French; English) segmented bi-syllabic words in their native language, but not in an…

The present study aimed at investigating whether L2 learning affects phonological short-term and working memory and first language (L1) development. The performance of a group of 31 4- to-5-year-old sequential bilinguals attending an International School on tasks assessing phonological short-term and working memory and linguistic performance in L1…

Many children learning English as an additional language (EAL) show reading comprehension difficulties despite adequate decoding. However, the relationship between early language and reading comprehension in this group is not fully understood. The language and literacy skills of 80 children learning English from diverse language backgrounds and 80…

Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to identify, reflect upon, and manipulate linguistic units. It plays a critical role in reading development. The present study investigated Chinese- and English-speaking preschoolers' metalinguistic awareness development and the role of cognitive and linguistic abilities in its development. Forty-two…

We assessed the language, cognitive, and socioemotional abilities of 27 internationally adopted children from China, adopted by French-speaking parents, 12 of whom had been assessed previously by Gauthier and Genesee. The children were on average 7 years, 10 months old and were matched to nonadopted monolingual French-speaking children on age,…

The aims of this study were to investigate whether specific linguistic difficulties in preterm children persist at eight years and to examine the interrelationships between language and literacy in this population, compared with a control group of full-term children. Sixty-eight monolingual Italian preterms and 26 chronologically matched controls…

In Urmia city, many children learn and speak their first language (either Azari or Kurdish) at home and study all of their courses in Farsi throughout their education. This bilingual quality of education needs to be researched to attain high quality educational practices. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of bilingualism on…

This study investigates how/whether the emergence and function of Turkish Tense Aspect Modality (TAM) markers that are used in narratives by children from 3 to 9 plus 13-year-olds show differences relative to the age of the narrator both quantitatively and qualitatively. The data were collected, by using Mayer's (1969) wordless picture book…

It has long been the assumption of many in the field of second language teaching that learning a second language helps to promote and enhance native language skill development, and that this correlation is direct and positive. Language professionals have assumed that learning a second language directly supports the development of better skills,…

Adult and child L2 acquisition of syntax-semantics interface phenomena must be compared with monolingual L1 acquisition of the same phenomena in order to assess the possible effects of interference and transfer. However, this "L1A touchstone" can also be misleading because non-grammatical mechanisms that interact with such interface phenomena may…

The purpose of the present study was to compare performance of bilingual and monolingual children on certain language-related skills. Fifteen children between the ages of three years, eight months, and seven years were matched for age and sex in each of the following four groups: middle-class monolinguals, lower-class monolinguals, Spanish-English…