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Past research shows that family language patterns (i.e., which languages are spoken in the family and by whom) are associated with bilingual children's language use. However, it is unclear how input properties such as input quantity, parental proficiency, and language mixing may differ across family language patterns. It is also unclear whether the effects of family language patterns on children's language proficiency remain when differences in input properties are controlled. We investigated (i) which family language patterns occurred in bilingual families in the Netherlands (n = 136), (ii) whether input properties differed across patterns, and (iii) how patterns related to children's proficiency, once input properties were controlled. Home language situations were assessed through a questionnaire, children's proficiency in Dutch and the minority language through vocabulary tests and parent ratings. Three language patterns were found: one-parent-one-language, both parents mixed languages or used the minority language. The results showed differences in input properties across all patterns, as well as effects of these patterns on children's proficiency in Dutch and the minority language that disappeared once input properties were controlled. These findings do not provide robust evidence that family language patterns predict children's proficiency, but rather, that input quantity is crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who are refugees become bilingual in circumstances that are often challenging and that can vary across national contexts. We investigated the second language (L2) syntactic skills of Syrian children aged 6-12 living in Canada (n = 56) and the Netherlands (n = 47). Our goal was to establish the impact of the first language (L1 = Syrian Arabic) skills on L2 (English, Dutch) outcomes and whether L1–L2 interdependence is influenced by the length of L2 exposure. To measure L1 and L2 syntactic skills, cross-linguistic Litmus Sentence Repetition Tasks (Litmus-SRTs) were used. Results showed evidence of L1–L2 interdependence, but interdependence may only surface after sufficient L2 exposure. Maternal education level and refugee camp experiences differed between the two samples. Both variables impacted L2 outcomes in the Canadian but not in the Dutch sample, demonstrating the importance to examine refugee children's bilingual language development in different national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spelling has been found to be influenced by the frequency with which certain orthographic patterns occur. We examined whether Grades 2–5 children were already sensitive to orthographic frequency in spelling present tense verb inflections that sound the same but are spelled differently. Children were asked to spell present tenses in two homophonous forms; both inflections are pronounced with final /t/ but are spelled with final -d ("ik vind," I find) or -dt ("hij/zij vindt," he/she finds). Previous research has shown that adolescents and adults make inflection errors based on the relative frequency within a pair; as "vind' is more frequent than "vindt," "vind" is often used incorrectly. The children showed low correct scores for third person singular spellings, and overall better performance for -d dominant verbs. Surprisingly, they did make errors related to homophone inflection but in the wrong place, marking the wrong time: homophone-based errors occurred in present tense non-homophone verbs and in past tenses. We take our findings to mean that the children were not sensitive to homophone dominance. Furthermore, the findings illustrate the importance of specific graphotactic patterns in literacy development and call for attention to these patterns in models and teaching of spelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined to what extent the variation in vocabulary learning outcomes (vocabulary knowledge, learning gain, and rate of forgetting) in English as a second language (L2) in context can be predicted from semantic contextual support, word characteristics (cognate status, Levenshtein distance, word frequency, and word length), and student characteristics (prior vocabulary knowledge, reading ability, and exposure to English) in 197 Dutch adolescents. Students were taught cognates, false friends, and control words through judging sentences with varying degrees of semantic contextual support using a pretest/posttest between subjects design. Participants were presented with an English target word and its Dutch translation, followed by an English sentence. They were instructed to judge the plausibility of the sentence. Mixed-efffects models indicated that learning gains were higher for sentences with more semantic contextual support and in students with stronger reading comprehension skills. We were the first to show that Levenshtein distance is an important predictor for L2 vocabulary learning outcomes. Furthermore, more accurate as well as faster learning task performance lead to higher learning outcomes. It can thus be concluded that L2 study materials containing semantically supportive contexts and that focus on words with little L1-L2 overlap are most effective for L2 vocabulary learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilingual children with reduced exposure to one or both languages may have language profiles that are apparently similar to those of children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Children with DLD receive enough input, but have difficulty using this input for acquisition due to processing deficits. The present investigation aims to determine aspects of adjective production that are differentially affected by reduced input (in bilingualism) and reduced intake (in DLD). Adjectives were elicited from Dutch–Russian simultaneous bilinguals with limited exposure to Russian and Russian-speaking monolinguals with and without DLD. An antonym elicitation task was used to assess the size of adjective vocabularies, and a degree task was employed to compare the preferences of the three groups in the use of morphological, lexical, and syntactic degree markers. The results revealed that adjective–noun agreement is affected to the same extent by both reduced input and reduced intake. The size of adjective lexicons is also negatively affected by both, but more so by reduced exposure. However, production of morphological degree markers and learning of semantic paradigms are areas of relative strength in which bilinguals outperform monolingual children with DLD. We suggest that reduced input might be counterbalanced by linguistic and cognitive advantages of bilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a semantic priming experiment, the influence of lexical access and knowledge of semantic relations on reading comprehension was studied in Dutch monolingual and bilingual minority children. Both context-independent semantic relations in the form of category coordinates and context-dependent semantic relations involving concepts that co-occur in certain contexts were tested in an auditory animacy decision task, along with lexical access. Reading comprehension and the control variables vocabulary size, decoding skill, and mental processing speed were tested by means of standardized tasks. Mixed-effects modeling was used to obtain individual priming scores and to study the effect of individual differences in the various predictor variables on the reading scores. Semantic priming was observed for the coordinate pairs but not the context-dependently related pairs, and neither context-independent priming nor lexical access predicted reading comprehension. Only vocabulary size significantly contributed to the reading scores, emphasizing the importance of the number of words known for reading comprehension. Finally, the results show that the monolingual and bilingual children perform similarly on all measures, suggesting that in the current Dutch context, language status may not be highly predictive of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test the effects of reading speed on second-language (L2) sentence processing and the potential influence of conflicting native language word order, we compared advanced L2 learners of English with native English speakers on a self-paced reading task. L2 learners read faster overall than native English speakers. When differences in reading speed were controlled for, L2 learners were as sensitive to grammaticality manipulations as native English speakers. On-line reading times did not reflect any effect of cross-language conflict in the learners. Results from an end-of-sentence verification task showed a stronger bias toward a subject–object order in the cross-language conflict conditions in speed-matched L2 learners but not in L2 learners reading faster than native speakers. Results are compatible with hypothesized differences in resource allocation between L2 and native language processing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Production studies on event conceptualization have shown that the language inventory has a clear influence on event descriptions in different languages (e.g., Carroll & von Stutterheim, 2010). In our perception study with native speakers of German, English, and Dutch and Dutch learners of German and English, we were able to show that in addition to preferred verbalization patterns, there are other verbalization patterns that are rated as equally likely. Our results suggest that a more differentiated explanation is needed than that proposed by Slobin (1996b). Grammatical aspects of a language are easier to acquire and apply than lexical aspects. These differences can be explained in terms of automatization and cognitive control of first language and second language processes (Levelt, 1989). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The influences of word decoding, availability, and accessibility of semantic word knowledge on reading comprehension were investigated for monolingual (n = 65) and bilingual children (n = 70). Despite equal decoding abilities, monolingual children outperformed bilingual children with regard to reading comprehension and availability of semantic word knowledge. Individual differences in reading comprehension were accounted for by differences in availability of semantic word knowledge and to a lesser extent by speed of access to this semantic knowledge. Speed of access accounted for variance in reading comprehension beyond the variance accounted for by decoding and availability of semantic knowledge. A path model suggests that reading comprehension differences between monolinguals and bilinguals are mediated by availability of semantic knowledge. Analyses showed no significant interaction between predictor variables and language background. A multigroup analysis distinguishing proficient and less proficient comprehenders showed a small difference between the two proficiency groups, suggesting that the lexical–semantic variables are more predictive of reading proficiency in the proficient group than in the less proficient group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigated narrative competence in children with pragmatic language impairment (PLI) and the extent to which it is related to impairments in theory of mind and executive functioning (EF). Narrative competence was assessed using a retelling design in a group of 77 children with PLI and a control group of 77 typically developing children, aged 5. The children with PLI showed an overall poorer narrative competence as apparent in measures of narrative productivity, organization of content, and cohesion. Some of these differences could be attributed to language impairments. The remaining differences could be partly interpreted as pragmatic deficits. In typically developing children, narrative productivity skills were related to both theory of mind and EF, but only theory of mind explained unique variance once language ability was added to the model. In the PLI group, however, narrative productivity skills were solely related to EF, over and above language abilities. Organization of story content and cohesion were not related to any of the cognitive measures for either group. The results indicate that children with PLI show narrative deficits and that these deficits are related to EF. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]