Word Learning and Word Knowledge in Monolingual and Sequential Bilingual Children

描述（由申请人提供）：在美国，近4700万人说英语以外的语言。然而，双语儿童的典型和非典型语言发展模式仍然不清楚，因此，构建有效和可靠的双语评估工具的能力是有限的。由于语言障碍的早期诊断有助于成功干预，并最终提高儿童的生活质量，因此缺乏适合双语儿童使用的评估工具构成了重大的健康风险。本研究的长期目标是发展理论基础的评估方法，适用于沿着各种水平的双语儿童。本研究的目的是运用工作记忆的理论框架来考察序贯双语儿童的词汇学习任务是否以及如何索引词汇知识。实验1将比较5-6岁的西班牙语-英语顺序双语和单语儿童学习符合英语语音结构的语音熟悉的新单词的能力。本研究假设英语词汇知识会影响儿童在语音熟悉词汇学习任务中的表现。由于顺序双语者在英语（他们的第二语言）的词汇量较弱相比，英语的母语，它是预测，单语儿童将优于顺序双语儿童的语音熟悉的任务。实验2将比较西班牙语-英语顺序双语和单语儿童学习语音不熟悉的新单词，不遵循英语或西班牙语的语音结构的能力。英语词汇知识被假设为对语音陌生的新单词的编码有有限的影响。因此，据预测，连续双语者和单语者将表现出相当的性能水平上的语音不熟悉的任务。词汇技能和单词学习成绩之间的关系，双语与单语儿童也将被检查。如果单词学习任务被发现索引双语儿童的概念，而不是英语特定的词汇知识，诊断使用单词学习任务与双语儿童可以支持。如果语音不熟悉的任务在双语和单语儿童中产生了相当的表现水平，则其使用可以推广到具有不同语言学习历史和熟练程度的其他双语儿童。从理论上讲，实验将测试工作记忆模型的能力，以适应和预测单语儿童相比，双语儿童的词汇知识和语音记忆容量之间的关联。 公共卫生相关性：目前的项目旨在改善以英语为第二语言的儿童的诊断实践，因此无法使用为单语英语儿童开发的工具进行测试。在拟议的工作中，我们测试单词学习任务是否可以作为典型的词汇发展的标志，在西班牙语双语儿童谁是收购英语作为第二语言。由于语言困难的早期诊断是成功干预和儿童最终生活质量的关键，因此确定能够准确反映双语儿童典型与非典型发展的任务可以为公共卫生做出重大贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nearly 47 million individuals speak languages other than English in the United States. However, patterns of typical and atypical language development in bilingual children remain unclear, and the ability to construct valid and reliable bilingual assessment tools is therefore limited. Since early diagnosis of a speech-language impairment is instrumental to successful intervention, and ultimately, to the child's quality of life, the lack of assessment tools appropriate for use with bilingual children constitutes a significant health risk. The long-term goal of this research is to develop theoretically-grounded assessment methods appropriate for use with bilingual children along a wide range of proficiency levels. The goal of the present work is to use the theoretical framework of working memory to examine whether and how word-learning tasks index vocabulary knowledge in sequential bilingual children. Experiment 1 will compare Spanish-English sequential-bilingual and monolingual children ages 5-6 on their ability to learn phonologically-familiar novel words that follow the English phonological structure. It is hypothesized that knowledge of English vocabulary will influence children's performance on the phonologically-familiar word-learning task. Because sequential bilinguals have weaker vocabulary in English (their second language) compared to native speakers of English, it is predicted that monolingual children will outperform sequential-bilingual children on the phonologically-familiar task. Experiment 2 will compare Spanish-English sequential-bilingual and monolingual children on their ability to learn phonologically-unfamiliar novel words that do not follow either the English or the Spanish phonological structure. Knowledge of English vocabulary is hypothesized to have limited effect on encoding of phonologically-unfamiliar novel words. Therefore, it is predicted that sequential bilinguals and monolinguals will demonstrate comparable performance levels on the phonologically-unfamiliar task. The relationship between vocabulary skills and word-learning performance in bilingual vs. monolingual children will also be examined. If word-learning tasks are found to index bilingual children's conceptual rather than English-specific vocabulary knowledge, diagnostic use of word-learning tasks with bilingual children can be supported. If the phonologically-unfamiliar task yields comparable performance levels in bilingual and monolingual children, its use can be generalized to other bilingual children with different language-learning histories and proficiency profiles. Theoretically, the experiments will test the ability of the working memory model to accommodate and predict the association between vocabulary knowledge and phonological memory capacity in monolingual compared to bilingual children. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The current project aims to improve diagnostic practices with children who speak English as a second language, and who therefore cannot be tested using tools developed for monolingual English-speaking children. In the proposed work, we test whether word-learning tasks can serve as markers of typical vocabulary development in Spanish-speaking bilingual children who are acquiring English as a second language. Because early diagnosis of a language difficulty is key to successful intervention and to the child's ultimate quality of life, identification of tasks that can accurately index bilingual children's typical vs. atypical development can make significant contribution to public health.