THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE AND PERFORMANCE ON LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT MEASURES IN TYPICALLY-DEVELOPING SPANISH-ENGLISH BILINGUAL CHILDREN

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Publication or External Link

Date

2021

Citation

Abstract

This study aimed to better understand the factors that affect bilingual children’s assessment performance and compare the effects of language experience on different types of measures. English language sample measures (i.e., Index of Productive Syntax, Mean Length of Utterance in morphemes, number of Brown’s morphemes, and Vocabulary Diversity) and English/Spanish nonword repetition (NWR) from 29 children with varying degrees of English and Spanish language experience were analyzed. Language experience, age, and baseline language abilities were identified as factors that influence and predict performance on language samples. Additionally, it was determined that NWR ability was not influenced by language-specific knowledge, due to the lack of significant correlation between nonword repetition accuracy and language experience. These preliminary findings suggest that NWR, even in a child’s second language, is a relatively unbiased tool. Future studies should compare the role of language experience on different measures in other languages.

Notes

Rights