Parent report of early lexical production in bilingual children: a cross-linguistic CDI comparison

Abstract

This paper compared the vocabulary size of a group of 250 bilinguals aged 24-36 months acquiring six different language pairs using an analogous tool, and attempted to identify factors that influence vocabulary sizes and ultimately place children at risk for language delay. Each research group used adaptations of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences and a specially designed developmental and language background questionnaire to gather information on risk factors for language impairment, demographic and language exposure variables. The results showed a wide range in vocabulary development which could be somewhat attributed to mothers' education status, parental concerns about language development and amount of exposure to the second language. We looked at those children performing below the 10th and above the 90th percentile to determine what factors were related to their vocabulary size. Features of the entire group of lower performing children were fewer than 50 words and the absence of two-word combinations by 24 months, lower levels of parental education and parental concerns about language development. The implications for identifying bilingual children at risk for language impairment as well as the language enrichment that might be needed for young bilinguals are outlined. ARTICLE HISTORY

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

“…With respect to the vocabulary size, previous research indicates that when tested in one language, bilingual children have smaller productive and receptive vocabulary than monolinguals ( Pearson et al, 1993 ; O’Toole et al, 2017 ), even when tested in their L1 (e.g., Pearson et al, 1997 ; Uccelli and Páez, 2007 ; Miękisz et al, 2017 ). Our study adds new evidence to this body of research.…”

I: Introduction

“…Crucially, the normed CDI parent reports have been adapted (not translated) in a multitude of languages, with the purpose of mirroring the structure of the reference language as much as possible. The availability of CDIs in many languages has created new opportunities for cross-linguistic studies of language development (see e.g., CLEX database now called Wordbank: Jørgensen, Dale, Bleses, & Fenson, 2009;Frank, Braginsky, Yurovsky, & Marchman, 2017) and for bilingual studies (e.g., Armon-Lotem, & Ohana, 2017;Cattani et al, 2014;Gatt, 2017;Pearson, Fernandez, & Oller, 1993;O'Toole et al, 2017). The reliability and validity of CDIs is long established for use in research (Mancilla-Martinez, Gamez, Vagh, & Lesaux, 2016;Marchman, Thal, Dale, & Reznick, 2006) and for clinical assessment (e.g., Charman, Drew, Baird, & Baird, 2003;Heilmann, Weismer, Evans, & Hollar, 2005;Thal, DesJardin, & Eisenberg, 2007).…”

Equitable Evaluation Of Bilingual Children's Language Knowledge Using the CDI

“…Thus, the CDI is not an assessment instrument in the narrow sense, but used for screening: that is, for establishing whether there may be a problem or not. Generally, if a child performs in the lower 10th percentile, meaning that 90% of the norming sample was doing better than the child who is being evaluated, this is a cause for great concern, and further investigation is necessary as to why the child is doing so poorly (e.g., O'Toole, Gatt, Hickey, Miękisz, Haman, Armon-Lotem, Rinker, Ohana, dos Santos & Kern, 2017). The same number of words understood or produced can lead to children being in quite different norm percentiles depending on the language: CDI norms for same-aged monolingual children acquiring a variety of different languages do not necessarily show similar levels (Bleses, Vach, Slott, Wehberg, Thomsen, Madsen & Basbøll, 2008;De Houwer, 2010).…”