Word Learning and Word Knowledge in Monolingual and Sequential Bilingual Children

描述(申请人提供)：在美国有近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有限。由于对言语-语言障碍的早期诊断有助于成功的干预，并最终有助于儿童的生活质量，缺乏适用于双语儿童的评估工具构成了重大的健康风险。这项研究的长期目标是开发适合于具有广泛熟练程度的双语儿童的理论基础的评估方法。本研究的目的是利用工作记忆的理论框架来考察词汇学习任务是否以及如何对顺序双语儿童的词汇知识进行标引。实验一将比较5-6岁的西班牙语-英语顺序双语儿童和单语儿童学习符合英语语音结构的语音熟悉的新词的能力。假设英语词汇知识会影响儿童在语音熟悉的单词学习任务中的表现。由于连续双语者在英语(他们的第二语言)中的词汇量比以英语为母语的人弱，因此可以预测，在语音熟悉的任务上，单语儿童的表现将优于连续双语者。实验二将比较西班牙语-英语顺序双语和单语儿童学习语音陌生新词的能力，这些新词既不遵循英语也不遵循西班牙语语音结构。英语词汇知识对语音陌生新词的编码影响有限。因此，可以预测，顺序双语者和单语者在语音陌生任务上的表现水平是相当的。双语儿童和单语儿童的词汇技能和词汇学习成绩之间的关系也将被研究。如果词汇学习任务被发现索引双语儿童的概念性词汇知识，而不是特定于英语的词汇知识，则可以支持对双语儿童使用词汇学习任务的诊断性使用。如果语音上不熟悉的任务在双语和单语儿童中的表现水平相当，它的使用可以推广到其他语言学习历史和熟练程度不同的双语儿童。从理论上讲，实验将检验工作记忆模型对单语儿童词汇知识与语音记忆能力之间的关联的调节和预测能力。 公共卫生相关性：目前的项目旨在改善将英语作为第二语言的儿童的诊断做法，因此无法使用为说英语的儿童开发的工具进行测试。在这项拟议的工作中，我们测试了单词学习任务是否可以作为将英语作为第二语言学习的西班牙语双语儿童的典型词汇发展的标志。由于语言障碍的早期诊断是成功干预的关键，也是儿童最终生活质量的关键，因此识别能够准确指示双语儿童典型与非典型发展的任务可以对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.