Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing, and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual and 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years;months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition), and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ, and short-term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, and phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input.

Reading and telling stories to children improves their narrative skills, which is well-documented for monolinguals, but not for bilinguals. We investigated whether bilingual narratives improve when the child is provided with a model story. We studied the narratives of Polish-English bilingual children (n = 75, mean age 5;7 years; months) raised in the UK. We elicited narratives through picture stories in two modes: told spontaneously and retold after a model provided by an adult experimenter. The bilinguals told and retold stories in Polish and English. The study combined a within-subject design, comparing the bilinguals' two languages, and a between-subject design, comparing the stories told and retold in Polish by the bilinguals and by Polish age-matched monolinguals (n = 75). We investigated whether retelling might improve bilingual and monolingual storytelling to the same extent. In the stories, we assessed both the macrostructure (e.g. story structure and answered comprehension questions) and microstructure (e.g. type-token ratio). We found a positive effect of retelling for the macrostructure in both monolinguals and bilinguals (regardless of the language). As for the microstructure, when retelling, children told longer stories, regardless of the language (Polish, English) and group (bilingual, monolingual). We argue that retelling stories improves the narrative skills of bilinguals. ARTICLE HISTORY

The ability to recursively infer the mental states of others to explain their complex behavior in ambiguous social situation may be called Advanced Theory of Mind (aToM). The relations between two components of aToM, cognitive and affective, measured on a behavioral level in 151 Polish 13-year-olds and 174 16-year-olds was examined. The role of age, gender and friendship style and its relations to the cognitive and affective aToM was explored. Cognitive aToM was only weakly to moderately related to affective aToM. Across both age groups females scored higher than males. Males' aToM abilities did not differ according to age, but they scored higher in the cognitive aToM than affective ToM. Also, different aspects of friendship style were significant predictors of both aToM abilities. The implications for two aToM components within a gendered social context were discussed.

The dichotomy between explicit and implicit theory of mind remains controversial. This study proposed a developmental and social-constructionist perspective that challenges this notion through a model showing that coordination of perspectives (CoP) is a continuously developing ability in children. Our tested model comprises eight distinct abilities that emerge sequentially. We tested our model using 25 different tasks in a longitudinal six-wave study with 300 native Polish children aged from 1 year (M T1 = 1 year 0 months; SD T1 = 1.73 weeks; 44% girls) to 3.5 years (M T6 = 3 years 6 months; SD T6 = 1.81 weeks; 45% girls). All children were Caucasian; both parents of 54% children had university degree. Structural equation modeling with factor scores for each of the eight abilities was used to verify the fit of obtained data. We provide preliminary support for distinguishing six abilities: (a) immediate social perspective-tracking and taking at age of 1 year, (b) deferred social perspective-tracking and visual perspective-taking as an intermediate step at age of 2 years, and (c) epistemic perspective-tracking and taking at 3.5 years. Using our new nomenclature -emphasizing the function of coordination of own and another person perspective in social situations-we found that development of mindreading begins when infants coordinate their bodily-expressed orientations with those of others, and by the age of 4 is manifested by coordinating own and others mental states. Thus, we support the idea of heterotypic continuity of mindreading development. Development of CoP and difference between perspective-tracking and taking should be further elucidated.

Introduction Although much is known about theory of mind (ToM) development during childhood, data on how these skills develop in adolescence is scarce. This cavity is due in part to the limited knowledge about measures of advanced theory of mind. Methods The study examined the relation among six common story‐based tasks designed to measure advanced ToM in two age groups of Polish adolescents: early (13‐year‐olds; 78 girls) and late (16‐year‐olds; 143 girls) adolescents. Results Factor models for individual tasks were constructed, followed by an examination of the underlying structure that explained the variability of factor scores. Only in half of the tasks, the results revealed an age‐related increase in advanced ToM. Contrary to expectation, results showed a lack of correlations among story‐based advanced ToM tasks in the two adolescent groups. Conclusions The results suggest a lack of coherence among advanced story‐based ToM tasks and the need for further development of reliable and valid advanced ToM measures which are sensitive enough to show increasingly complex social reasoning abilities in adolescence.

Polish and English differ in the surface realization of the underlying Determiner Phrase (DP): Polish lacks an article system, whereas English makes use of articles for both grammatical and pragmatic reasons. This difference has an impact on how referentiality is rendered in both languages. In this article, the authors investigate the use of referential markers by Polish–English bilingual children and Polish monolingual children. Using the LITMUS-MAIN picture stories, the authors collected speech samples of Polish–English bilinguals raised in the UK ( n = 92, mean age 5;7) and compared them with matched Polish monolinguals ( n = 92, mean age 5;7). The analyses revealed that the bilinguals’ mean length of utterance (MLU) in Polish was significantly higher than that of the monolinguals because the bilinguals produced significantly more referential markers (especially pronouns) which inflated their MLU. The authors posit that the non-standard referentiality used by the bilinguals in Polish is caused by cross-language transfer at the syntax–pragmatics interface. When producing narratives in Polish, Polish–English bilinguals overuse referential markers as cohesive devices in their stories, which is not ungrammatical, but pragmatically odd in Polish. Bilinguals tend to do this because they are immersed in English-language input, rich in overt pronouns. Thus, in the process of realizing the surface features of the Polish DP they partly rely on an underlying English DP structure.

Self-esteem is continuous and has stable characteristics, but it may also change, e.g., during transitions from one educational level to the next. In a prospective cross-sectional study over a year and a half, 250 Polish early adolescents ( N = 109, 54 girls; mean age at T1 = 12.68 years, SD = 0.49) and middle adolescents ( N = 141, 107 girls; mean age at T1 = 15.80, SD = 0.44) were tested three times using Harter’s Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents, assessing both global self-esteem and self-evaluation in eight domains. The change and consistency of self-esteem were analyzed, at both group and individual levels. At the group level, the following results were found: (1) continuity of self-esteem in five domains (scholastic competence, athletic competence, physical appearance, close friendship, and romantic appeal) and in global self-esteem and discontinuity in only three domains (social acceptance, job competence, and behavioral conduct); (2) significant inter-individual variation in the change not explained by age; and (3) higher self-esteem (in five domains) in early adolescents. At the individual level, the stability in most domains was weak, but was restored over the second year at the new school. The complexity of the developmental change and consistency in self-esteem in adolescence was highlighted, emphasizing the need for analyzing both group and individual change.

Vocabulary acquisition appeared to be slower in Polish than in English, probably because of the complexity of the language. However, the languages were very similar with respect to vocabulary composition findings.