Children with Down syndrome (DS) present language deficits in all linguistic domains and their language development lags behind that of typically developing children. However, their receptive language skills appear to be better than their productive in all linguistic domains. Research on bilingual children with DS is limited, but has shown that…

The purpose of the present study was to examine how foreign language education may affect preschool children's native language development. The study was carried out with 70 children who were 48-60 months-old and attending a public preschool in Alanya, a district of Antalya, in Turkey. The research method of the study was Solomon Four-Group…

Prediction from early development to later achievement has the potential to improve clinical and educational service delivery as well as to inform developmental theory. In this longitudinal study, we asked how well can educational achievement measured in the final year (Grade 9, age 15) of compulsory education--both overall and for outcomes in the…

Children learn the words of their native language(s) from interactions with their caregivers. Although previous research has found that the language children hear during those interactions predicts vocabulary outcomes, few studies have investigated how qualitative features of social interactions work together to affect children's vocabulary…

The present study explored the relationship between amount of dual language exposure, parents' language quality and bilingual competence among Chinese American children with autism spectrum disorder by using a cross-sectional correlational design. Thirty parent-child dyads participated in this study. Survey and observational data were collected…

This study explores how preschool educators could assess dual language learners' (DLLs) English language abilities using formative instruments in school settings. It specifically examines (1) DLLs' receptive and expressive language proficiencies measured using the instruments and (2) educators' perceived usefulness of them for informing…

The unique relation of language use (i.e., output) to language growth was investigated for forty-seven 30-month-old Spanish-English bilingual children (27 girls, 20 boys) whose choices of which language to speak resulted in their levels of English output differing from their levels of English input. English expressive vocabularies and receptive…

Background: There is a critical need to understand better speech and language development in bilingual children learning two spoken languages who use cochlear implants (CIs) and hearing aids (HAs). The paucity of knowledge in this area poses a significant barrier to providing maximal communicative outcomes to a growing number of children who have…

The purpose of this study was to develop a parallel bilingual vocabulary measure for the comparative study of receptive and expressive vocabulary growth in young Armenian-English bilinguals. The measure was comprised of four independent vocabulary lists equivalent on age of acquisition ratings. The lists were counterbalanced across four tasks,…

In many low- and middle-income countries, young children learn a mother tongue or indigenous language at home before entering the formal education system where they will need to understand and speak a country's official language(s). Thus, assessments of children before school age, conducted in a nation's official language, may not fully reflect a…

The primary purpose of the present study was to test language and cognitive predictors of lexical selection in the storytelling of monolingual and bilingual children. Measures of language proficiency and cognitive ability were assessed with both English- and Mandarin-speaking monolinguals and Mandarin-English bilinguals aged 4 to 6 years old. To…

The population of Spanish-speaking preschoolers in the United States continues to increase and there is a significant need to develop psychometrically sound early language and literacy screening measures to accurately capture children's ability in Spanish. In this paper, we describe the innovative design and calibration process of the new…

This longitudinal study modeled lexical development among children who spoke Vietnamese as a first language (L1) and English as a second language (L2). Participants (n = 33, initial mean age of 7.3 years) completed a total of eight tasks (four in each language) that measured vocabulary knowledge and lexical processing at four yearly time points.…

This study investigated cross-linguistic influence in acquisition of a second lexicon, evaluating Samoan-English sequentially bilingual children (initial mean age 4 ; 9) during their first 18 months of school. Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary tasks evaluated acquisition of four word types: cognates, matched nouns, phrasal nouns and holonyms.…

This study examines vocabulary growth rates in first and second languages for Spanish-speaking and Cantonese-speaking English language learners from kindergarten through second grade. Growth-modeling results show a within-language effect of concepts about print on vocabulary. Language exposure also had an effect on English vocabulary: earlier…