Patterns of Bilingual Development and their Environmental Correlates

描述（由申请人提供）：来自双语家庭的儿童是人口的一个很大的和不断增长的部分。他们的早期语言能力既没有得到很好的描述，也没有得到很好的理解。由于学前阶段的语言技能可以预测以后的学习成绩和社会适应能力，目前对早期双语发展的认识不足构成了一个重大的公共卫生问题。本研究的目的1是确定与从婴儿期开始接触两种语言的儿童成功双语发展相关的环境因素。语言技能和语言环境的2 1/2岁的西班牙语-英语双语儿童将进行评估，他们的语言技能，他们的语言环境的关系进行调查。拟议中的研究将是第一个描述年轻的双语儿童的语言能力，在他们的语音，词汇和形态句法的发展，在两种语言，评估标准化的工具和措施的基础上自发的语音样本。拟议中的研究将是第一个使用照顾者访谈，照顾者保持他们的孩子的语言经验的日记，以及照顾者的儿童导向的语言样本来描述双语环境。描述儿童语言能力和语言环境的方法将利用以变量为中心和以人为中心的数据分析技术，产生的描述方面的连续维度的变化和频繁出现的类型，或类别。将使用这两种描述符对技能与环境之间的关系进行分析。目的2的拟议研究是测试理论驱动的假设，对双语儿童的语言技能的组成部分之间的相互关系的证据语言发展的机制。双语儿童可能会表现出这样的发展模式，即语音和形态句法的发展比词汇的发展更先进，接受能力比产出能力更先进。在这样的双语儿童，跨域技能之间的相互关系应该不同于那些通常观察到的，这些相互关系的具体情况应该约束关于语言习得机制的假设，并建议在双语发展过程中，两种语言的知识增长或不相互作用的方式。拟议的研究将填补知识基础的空白，为全国相当一部分儿童提供优质的教育和临床服务，并将促进对早期双语发展过程的科学理解。公共卫生相关性：目前缺乏关于在双语家庭中长大的儿童的语言技能的信息，这是最大限度地发挥该国相当一部分儿童的经济潜力的一个障碍。拟议的研究的目的是描述儿童显示的双语能力的模式，并确定在儿童发展的早期，关键时刻成功的双语环境相关因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Children from bilingual homes are a large and growing segment of the population. Their early language competencies are neither well described nor understood. Because language skills during the preschool years are predictive of later academic achievement and social adjustment, the current poor understanding of early bilingual development constitutes a significant public health problem. Aim 1 of the proposed research is to identify the environmental factors associated with successful bilingual development in children exposed to two languages from infancy. The language skills and language environments of 2 1/2 -year-old Spanish-English bilingual children will be assessed, and the relation of their language skills to their language environments investigated. The proposed research will be the first to describe young bilingual children's language competencies in terms of their phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic development in both languages, assessed with standardized instruments and with measures based on spontaneous speech samples. The proposed research will be the first to describe bilingual environments using caregiver interviews, caregiver-kept diaries of their children's language experience, and samples of caregivers' child-directed speech in both languages. The approaches to describing children's language competencies and language environments will make use of variable-centered and person-centered data analytic techniques, yielding descriptions in terms of continuous dimensions of variability and in terms of frequently-occurring types, or categories. Analyses of the relations between skills and environments will be conducted using both kinds of descriptors. Aim 2 of the proposed research is to test theory-driven hypotheses regarding mechanisms of language development against the evidence of within- and across-language interrelations among components of language skill in bilingual children. Bilingual children may show patterns of development in which phonological and morphosyntactic development are more advanced than lexical development and in which receptive competence is more advanced than productive competence, relative to monolingual norms. In such bilingual children, the interrelations among skills across domains should differ from those typically observed, and the specifics of those interrcorrelations should constrain hypotheses regarding the mechanisms of language acquisition and suggest ways in which growing knowledge of two languages does or does not interact in the process of bilingual development. The proposed research will fill a gap in the knowledge base needed to provide quality educational and clinical services to a substantial segment of the nation's children and will advance scientific understanding of the process of early bilingual development. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The current lack of information about the language skills of children growing up in bilingual homes is an obstacle to maximizing the economic potential of a substantial segment of the nation's children. The aims of the proposed research are to describe the patterns of bilingual competencies that children display and to identify environmental correlates of successful bilingualism at an early, critical juncture in children's development.