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…

This study investigates the utility and validity of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) for use with low-income parents and their 24- to 36-month-old Spanish-English bilingual children (n = 79). Issues in the interpretation of the integrated CDI/Inventarios del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas (IDHC) score to index…

This study examined the relation between young English language learners' (ELL) native oral language skills and their language input in transitional bilingual education kindergarten classrooms. Spanish-speaking ELLs' ("n" = 101) Spanish expressive language skills were assessed using the memory for sentences and picture vocabulary…

Five experiments examined whether overt repetition (i.e., saying a word aloud) during exposure is critical to the expressive learning of new words. When participants did not engage in overt repetition during exposure, they nevertheless exhibited clear expressive learning, both with and without an accompanying semantics, indicating that overt…

Investigated the relationships of expressive vocabulary size with frequency of being read to and frequency of watching television among 64 bilingual 21- 27-month-old children from homes in which Spanish and English were spoken. Frequency of being read to in each language was positively correlated with expressive vocabulary size. Frequency of…

Longitudinally compared the production of syllable shapes in 10-minute spontaneous speech samples of 20 children with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E) and 15 typically developing (TD) peers from 24 to 36 months of age. Results are discussed. (Author/VWL)