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| Research article summary (published 30 Mar 2002): |
Balancing bilinguals II: lexical comprehension and cognitive processing in children learning Spanish and English.
Full Abstract
The present study investigated developmental changes in lexical comprehension skills in early sequential bilinguals, in both Spanish (L1) and English (L2), exploring the effects of age, years of experience, and basic-level cognitive processing (specifically the ability to maintain performance during mixed vs. single-language processing) within a timed picture-word verification task. Participants were 100 individuals, 20 at each of five different age levels (ages in years, 5-7, 8-10, 11-13, 14-16, and adults). All had learned Spanish as a first language in the home, with formal English experience beginning at 5 years. Gains (as indexed by increased response speed) were made in both languages across age, although these gains were greater in English than in Spanish. The youngest participants were relatively "balanced" in their crosslinguistic performance. By middle childhood, performance was better in English. There were no response decrements at any age between the mixed and single-language processing conditions. These results are compared to those from a previous study that investigated basic-level lexical production in developing Spanish-English bilinguals. Both studies show a move toward English dominance in middle childhood, but the transition occurs earlier in comprehension. The production study showed differences between mixed and single-language processing (reflecting potential interlanguage interference) that are not evident in comprehension.
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Author information
Author/s: Kohnert, Kathryn J (KJ); Bates, Elizabeth (E);
Affiliation: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455, USA. kohne005@umn.edu
Grants: 2 R01 DC00216 (Agency:United States NIDCD) ; 5T32 DC00041 (Agency:United States NIDCD)
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Journal: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR (J Speech Lang Hear Res), published in United States. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 45 (issue 2) : pp 347-59
Dates: Created 2002/05/10; Completed 2002/11/04; Revised 2007/11/14;
PMID: 12003516, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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