Disentangling the effects of cognitive development and linguistic expertise: A longitudinal study of the acquisition of English in internationally-adopted children

Abstract

Early language development is characterized by predictable changes in the words children produce and the complexity of their utterances. In infants these changes could reflect increasing linguistic expertise or cognitive maturation and development. To disentangle these factors, we compared the acquisition of English in internationally-adopted preschoolers and internationallyadopted infants. Parental reports and speech samples were collected for one year. Both groups showed the qualitative shifts that characterize first-language acquisition. Initially, they produced single-word utterances consisting mostly of nouns and social words. The appearance of verbs, adjectives and multiword utterances was predicted by vocabulary size in both groups.Preschoolers did learn some words at an earlier stage than infants, specifically words referring to the past or future and adjectives describing behavior and internal states. These findings suggest that cognitive development plays little role in the shift from referential terms to predicates but may constrain children's ability to learn some abstract words.

SLA for the 21st Century: Disciplinary Progress, Transdisciplinary Relevance, and the Bi/multilingual Turn

“…There appear to be intriguing empirical parallelisms across types of acquisition that begin later in life, regardless of whether one or more than one languages are involved. For instance, a reported advantage in rate of learning has surfaced as a consistent finding in studies across the various acquisition types characterized by late learning: delayed L1 acquisition of sign language (Ramírez et al, 2012), successive monolingual acquisition by international adoptees (Snedeker et al, 2012), and early successive bilingual acquisition (Paradis, 2009, 2011). A faster rate of learning, of course, has also been well established in studies of SLA as an initial advantage that adolescents and adults enjoy over children (Krashen, Long, & Scarcella, 1979; Muñoz, 2006).…”

“…Both fields study acquisition versus loss under situations of late learning and bi/multilingualism. Evidence of language loss also sheds light on monolingual learning processes in extreme cases of abrupt attrition due to language replacement at young ages, as in the recent interest in the study of so‐called successive monolingual language acquisition by international adoptees (Hyltenstam et al, 2009; Snedeker, Geren, & Shafto, 2012). (The latter situation is such a unique case of language attrition that I have included it as its own type in Figure 1.)…”

The emergence of temporal language in Nicaraguan Sign Language

“…Given the prevalence of time in our everyday experiences, there are reasons to expect temporal language to emerge early in language creation. At the same time, the abstractness and complexity of time may create conceptual hurdles for the learner (Snedeker, Geren & Shafto, 2012; Tillman & Barner, 2015) or make it more difficult for communities to quickly converge on effective linguistic devices.…”

A Longitudinal Study of Language and Speech in Children Who Were Internationally Adopted at Different Ages

“…Although older children have more to learn, their increased cognitive capacity and prior experience with language gives them the ability to learn at a faster rate. For example, children adopted from China before 16 months of age learned new words at the rate of 23 per month, but children adopted between ages 2;6 and 5;0 years;months learned new words at the rate of 85 per month (Snedeker et al, 2012). This faster pace of learning may negate some of the differences in language growth between younger and older adoptees.…”

“…When adopted, they quickly lose their first language and become monolingual in the language of their new home (Glennen & Masters, 2002;Snedeker, Geren, & Shafto, 2012). The children then begin the process of developing proficiency in their new adopted language.…”