A large receptive–expressive gap in bilingual children

Keller, Karin; Troesch, Larissa Maria; Grob, Alexander

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01284

Cited by 27 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(94 reference statements)

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“…When it comes to vocabulary size in bilinguals’ HL, some studies show poor performance in both receptive and expressive vocabulary ( Pearson et al, 1997 ; Uccelli and Páez, 2007 ; Bialystok et al, 2010 ; Verhoeven et al, 2011 ; O’Toole et al, 2017 ), while there are other studies that do not show this effect ( Umbel and Ki Oller, 1994 ; Winsler et al, 1999 ). Moreover, previous findings are not always consistent as to whether a receptive and expressive vocabulary gap ( Keller et al, 2015 ) exists in both languages and if so which factors contribute to its existence. Umbel and Ki Oller (1994) , for example, found that Spanish-English bilinguals in first, third, and sixth grade functioned comparably well on the HL Spanish receptive vocabulary test, while SL English receptive vocabulary performance increased with grade level.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Vocabulary, Metalinguistic Awareness and Language Dominance Among Bilingual Preschool Children

2018

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Awareness of language structure has been studied in bilinguals, but there is limited research on how language dominance is related to metalinguistic awareness, and whether metalinguistic awareness predicts vocabulary size. The present study aims to explore the role of language dominance in the relation between vocabulary size in both languages of bilingual children and metalinguistic awareness in the societal language. It evaluates the impact of two metalinguistic awareness abilities, morphological and lexical awareness, on receptive and expressive vocabulary size. This is of special interest since most studies focus on the impact of exposure on vocabulary size but very few explore the impact of the interaction between metalinguistic awareness and dominance. 5–6-year-old preschool children with typical language development participated in the study: 15 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children dominant in the societal language (SL) Hebrew, 21 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children dominant in the Heritage language (HL) Russian and 32 monolingual children. Dominance was determined by relative proficiency, based on standardized tests in the two languages. Tasks of morphological and lexical awareness were administered in SL-Hebrew, along with measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary size in both languages. Vocabulary size in SL-Hebrew was significantly higher for SL-dominant bilinguals (who performed like monolinguals) than for HL-dominant bilinguals, while HL-Russian vocabulary size was higher for HL-dominant bilinguals than for SL-dominant bilinguals. A hierarchical regression analyzing the relationship between vocabulary size and metalinguistic awareness showed that dominance, lexical metalinguistic awareness and the interaction between the two were predictors of both receptive and expressive vocabulary size. Morphological metalinguistic awareness was not a predictor of vocabulary size. The relationship between lexical awareness and SL-vocabulary size was limited to the HL-dominant group. HL-dominant bilinguals relied on lexical metalinguistic awareness, measured by fast mapping abilities, that is, the abilities to acquire new words, in expanding their vocabulary size, whereas SL-dominant bilinguals and monolinguals did not. This difference reflects the milestones of lexical acquisition the different groups have reached. These findings show that metalinguistic awareness should also be taken into consideration when evaluating the variables that influence vocabulary size among bilinguals though different ways in different dominance groups.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Vocabulary, Metalinguistic Awareness and Language Dominance Among Bilingual Preschool Children

2018

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“…This subtest requires children to understand and remember concepts and order of mention of pictures. Studies have established that receptive heritage language skills may be relatively spared (Keller et al, 2015) and bilinguals outperform monolinguals in working memory (Morales et al, 2013). In contrast, Sentence Structure, Word Structure and Recalling Sentences standard scores were lower.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following instructions is also a receptive language task and outcomes may be expected to be more advanced than expressive language tasks (Altman et al, 2017, 2018). In the case of heritage language speakers, a difference of one or more than one standard deviation has been reported (Keller et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The development of English as a heritage language: The role of chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism

2020

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This study explores typically developing bilingual children’s performance in their English as a heritage language. The aim of this study is to advance our understanding of heritage language expectations and the role of chronological age and bilingual exposure. A broad range of receptive and expressive linguistic domains are investigated as a function of chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism. English–Hebrew typically developing bilingual children ( N = 240), ages 60–77 months, were compared to monolingual norms, using seven subtest standardized scores from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool-2 (CELF-Preschool-2). Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANCOVAs, multiple regression analysis, and post-hoc comparisons were conducted. English heritage language speakers presented with an asymmetric linguistic system influenced by their chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism. Results demonstrated that performance was more advanced for measures that were less reliant on language-specific skills. Measures dependent on grammatical knowledge were vulnerable to limitations but they were within the monolingual norms. In contrast, the lexicon was heavily influenced by bilingualism. These findings contribute to the literature on bilingual linguistic expectations and will have implications for theories of heritage language acquisition and language acquisition in general.

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“…The amount of overlap in children's vocabulary between the two languages may depend on how typologically related the two languages are (Hammer et al, ). Furthermore, bilingual children's performance on language assessments in their second language may have more to do with exposure to the second language than knowledge transfer based on first‐language proficiency (Keller, Troesch, & Grob, ). For this reason, children may perform better on certain aspects of the tests, such as letter sounds, syllables, or reading fluency, when they are tested in the LOI as compared to their native language (Bialystok, Majumder, & Martin, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multilingual assessment of early child development: Analyses from repeated observations of children in Kenya

Knauer

Kariger

Jakiela

et al. 2019

Developmental Science

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In many low‐ and middle‐income countries, young children learn a mother tongue or indigenous language at home before entering the formal education system where they will need to understand and speak a country's official language(s). Thus, assessments of children before school age, conducted in a nation's official language, may not fully reflect a child's development, underscoring the importance of test translation and adaptation. To examine differences in vocabulary development by language of assessment, we adapted and validated instruments to measure developmental outcomes, including expressive and receptive vocabulary. We assessed 505 2‐to‐6‐year‐old children in rural communities in Western Kenya with comparable vocabulary tests in three languages: Luo (the local language or mother tongue), Swahili, and English (official languages) at two time points, 5–6 weeks apart, between September 2015 and October 2016. Younger children responded to the expressive vocabulary measure exclusively in Luo (44%–59% of 2‐to‐4‐year‐olds) much more frequently than did older children (20%–21% of 5‐to‐6‐year‐olds). Baseline receptive vocabulary scores in Luo (β = 0.26, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001) and Swahili (β = 0.10, SE = 0.05, p = 0.032) were strongly associated with receptive vocabulary in English at follow‐up, even after controlling for English vocabulary at baseline. Parental Luo literacy at baseline (β = 0.11, SE = 0.05, p = 0.045) was associated with child English vocabulary at follow‐up, while parental English literacy at baseline was not. Our findings suggest that multilingual testing is essential to understanding the developmental environment and cognitive growth of multilingual children.

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A large receptive–expressive gap in bilingual children

Cited by 27 publications

References 38 publications

Vocabulary, Metalinguistic Awareness and Language Dominance Among Bilingual Preschool Children

Vocabulary, Metalinguistic Awareness and Language Dominance Among Bilingual Preschool Children

The development of English as a heritage language: The role of chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism

Multilingual assessment of early child development: Analyses from repeated observations of children in Kenya

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