People use different communication patterns based on the context and who they are addressing. These differences, known as linguistic register, are common across human speech and recognized early in development. Here, we examine 4-11-year-old American children's (N = 227) ability to use linguistic registers to determine a speaker's addressee as…

This paper explores preschool children's (aged 5:6) language development in nursery and at home. The study examines how children learn a new language in nursery and practise their learning at home. The data in this study is drawn from a long ethnographic research, which included two stages of data collection. I used participant observation, audio…

Spanish is the second most common language among US children aged 5-17, with 26.8% speaking it at home. To foster cultural understanding and promote positive relationships, it's crucial to introduce young children to different languages and cultures. Preschool language education can cultivate respect and empathy, building more inclusive…

Recent studies have revealed that the development of self-regulation and social skills in preschool children is important for later academic success, social acceptance and psychological wellbeing. Children who lack these skills are at risk for not being able to socialize and may face rejection behaviors among peers, show aggressive behaviors, or…

This study examines the effects of input quality on early phonological acquisition by investigating whether interadult variation in specific phonetic properties in the input is reflected in the production of their children. We analysed the English coda stop release patterns in the spontaneous speech of fourteen mothers and compared them with the…

Non-word repetition tasks are widely used to assess phonological short-term memory (PSTM). Results of previous research on the performance of monolingual and bilingual children in PSTM tasks are inconclusive. Although in some studies bilinguals did outperform monolinguals in the repetition of non-words, most studies reported comparatively weak…

Extensive evidence indicates that early vocabulary skills predict later reading development among monolingually developing children. Some evidence suggests that a relationship between vocabulary and later reading also holds across languages among children whose home language differs from the school language. However, these findings have been mixed…

Codeswitching is a common feature of bilingual language practices, yet its impact on word learning is poorly understood. Critically, processing costs associated with codeswitching may extend to learning. Moreover, verbs tend to be more difficult to learn than nouns, and the challenges of learning verbs could compound with processing costs…

The research report describes the ability of Kazakh preschool children to tell narratives relating to mental states, and the connection with theory of mind tasks about false beliefs. Three groups of preschool children (N = 29; 3-, 4-, and 5- year-olds) from the city of Almaty were tested in the Kazakh language. The results show very high…

Previous research on the L1 acquisition of motion event expression suggests that mapping multiple semantic components onto syntactic units is associated with greater difficulties in verb-framed than in satellite-framed languages, because the former require more complex structures (using subordination). This study investigated the impact of this…

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…

This article offers insights into trends found in 74 empirical studies on teaching and learning a foreign language (FL) in pre-primary schools in 25 countries. The emerging picture is like that of primary-school programs: most are implemented in English, mostly owing to parents' enthusiasm rather than evidence on long term FL benefits. Researchers…

Background: Bilingual assessment is particularly difficult in the very first period of children's second language (L2) exposure. This exploratory, longitudinal study examined L2 learning after 1 and 2 years of L2 exposure by young immigrants and how it is affected by their age at first exposure to the L2 (AoE). Method: Participants were 18…

This preliminary study examined the relationship between clinicians' perceptions (i.e., speech pathologists) of children's scores on the Assertiveness scale of the Teacher-Child Rating Scale 2.1 and gains in naming and defining words following English-only or Spanish--English intervention for emergent bilinguals (EBs). Twenty-eight…

Despite the unique status of English as a super-power among foreign languages in Korea, and researchers' increasing interest in Korean parents' zeal for achieving their children's early bilingualism and willingness to invest heavily in private English education outside of school, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of parental…