Differences in IQ and Memory of Monolingual/Bilingual Children who Suffered a TBI

Pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs at an average rate of 180 per 100,000 children who are hospitalized for head injury within the United States (Schwartz et al., 2003). Bilinguals are a large proportion of the population living in the United States and in Southern California, particularly. If children who are bilingual incur a TBI, will they have even more difficulty than monolinguals with language tasks because they have a smaller vocabulary base? This study aims to further elucidate whether verbal memory will be more severely impacted than nonverbal memory in this same bilingual pediatric TBI population. 18 children (M age =11.67 years (SD =3.7), 61% males, 50% bilingual) were assessed as part of a longitudinal study evaluating neuropsychological outcomes in moderate/ severe pediatric TBI at 3 m (Time 1) & 12 m (Time 2) post-injury. Multiple mixed design ANCOVA\u27s were conducted in order to assess differences within and between bilingual/monolingual IQ\u27s and verbal and nonverbal memories. Overall this study has shown that bilinguals do not appear to have a significant difference between their VIQ/PIQ splits. The bilingual brain does not appear to have significant changes in VIQ, immediate, or delayed verbal memory. More significant improvements are seen within the monolingual brain. The greatest recovery for both bilinguals and monolinguals appears to occur over time with immediate and delayed nonverbal memory

Pescado or Fish? Rapid Automatic Naming Performance for Young Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners

Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) is a behavioral task that measures how quickly and accurately an individual can name a set of pictured items. This task is an important predictor for reading success in young children, regardless of the number of languages spoken. As a measure of lexical processing eficiency, RANreflects the speed and accuracy of lexical access and retrieval, which is required for comprehension and production fo spoken and written language. The aim of this dissertation was to investigate the longitudinal performance across languages on a RANObjects task for young Spanish-speaking English language learning (ELL)children, as well as the predictive value of the task measures for later word reading for ELLand monolingual children. Although the ELL children are reported to have little experience with English prior to entering kindergarten, we found that ELLchildren were acutaully faster and more accurate in English than in Spanish by the end of kindergarten. Another surprising finding was that when compared to their monolingual English-speaking peers, ELLchildren were equally as fast and accurate as the monolinguals on this RANObjects task in English. Additionally, we found that these early RANmeasures were significantly predictive of later word reading for both ELLand monolingual children. Based on our findings, we proposed that ELLchildren have a rapid shift in lexical processing efficiency from their first to their second language during the kindergarten year. This shift occurs much earlier than previously reported and may be facilitated by a combination of cognitive-linguistic and environmental factors, including lexical density, the strength of lexical connectivity, and priming effects secondary to environmental context. Overall, this expands upon prior research by emphasizing the predicitve value of the errors produced on the RANObjects task. This work also supports evidence-based practice by demonstrating that the time of testing, language of testing, and the types of measures used are important considerations when identifying children for potential reading deficits. Taken together, these findings provide theoretical and practical insight into the importance of the RANObjects task as an indicator of lexical processing for young Spanish-speaking ELL children

The Linguistic and Cultural Aspects of Neuropsychological Assessment in People with Dementia

Objectives: Given the public health crisis that Alzheimer's disease (AD) has become (Naylor et al., 2012),neuropsychological assessment tools that provide timely and accurate identification of cognitive decline in older adults have gained increasing focus in the scientific literature. Accurate evaluation of cognitive function and early identification of cognitive changes are paramount to understanding the disease course of AD and improving effective treatments and patients' quality of life. To this end, language offers a cognitive neuropsychological approach to identifying cognitive decline in the early stages of AD. Moreover, it represents a multi-dimensional variable that may influence the neuropsychological test performance of older adults due to its potential contribution to cognitive reserve. Therefore, the present thesis aims at combining two aspects of language to explore its potential in the early detection of AD and its association with neuropsychological test performance in older adults and cross-cultural neuropsychology. Study 1 assessed the currently available studies to explore whether discourse processing, particularly macro-structural discourse comprehension, offers a novel approach to neuropsychological testing in distinguishing normal cognitive aging from AD pathology-related decline. Study 2 evaluated the results of the studies that examined the impact of bilingualism on neuropsychological test performance in monolingual and bilingual older adults to inform the neuropsychological evaluation of these groups in clinical practice. Study 3 investigated the influence of bilingualism and its associated factors, namely, cultural background and acculturation, on cognitive screening tests in three clinically diagnosed AD patient groups to identify a cross-culturally/linguistically appropriate measure of cognition. Method: Data of Study 1 and Study 2 were based on the original research studies published in English investigating discourse comprehension and bilingualism in healthy older adults, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and AD. A literature search focusing on these topics with participant groups aged 60 years and over was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and PsycINFO databases. Study 1 included eight articles consisting of studies only with cross sectional designs. Study 2 was comprised of twenty-seven articles, of which sixteen articles had cross-sectional designs. On the other hand, Study 3 was original research based on a cross sectional design targeting culturally/linguistically diverse patients diagnosed with AD. Specifically, the study sample consisted of Turkish immigrant (n=21) and monolingual, non-immigrant German (n=20) and Turkish (n=24) patients with AD. All participants were administered the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS), a dementia severity rating scale, and a self-report measure of depression. Additionally, self-report measures of bilingualism and acculturation were conducted with Turkish-immigrant participants with AD. Results: Study 1 revealed that people with AD and MCI have significant deficits in discourse comprehension, which are not observed in cognitively normal older adults of any age. On five of six discourse comprehension measures, groups with AD were significantly worse than healthy older adults, with one measure yielding mixed findings. Furthermore, compared to the cognitively healthy groups, individuals with MCI showed significant performance deficits in discourse comprehension measures similar to those with AD. Study 2 indicated better performance for bilingual older adults on executive function tests when compared to their monolingual counterparts. On the other hand, bilinguals were found to perform poorer than monolinguals on tests assessing the language domain. However, these findings did not remain robust when the impact of bilingualism on test performance was investigated longitudinally. Lastly, Study 3 provided further evidence on the linguistic and educational bias of the MMSE when employed in culturally and linguistically diverse individuals with AD. Bilingualism was linked to better performance on the MMSE in the Turkish immigrant group. German patients with AD obtained higher scores on this test than the other two groups. Furthermore, RUDAS was shown to be a better alternative for assessing global cognition in German and Turkish individuals with AD. Conclusion: The macro-structural discourse comprehension assessment paradigm has shown promising results in identifying the preclinical stages of AD. Further research on this paradigm may help develop a diagnostic tool with a clinical value that can be utilized for differential diagnosis, predicting conversion from MCI to dementia in research and clinical settings. On the other hand, another aspect of linguistic skills, namely, the evaluation of research on the link between bilingualism and neuropsychological test performance, did not provide definitive answers to the question of bilingual advantages and disadvantages addressed in the second study due to methodological challenges in the field. However, it identified a comprehensive and critical list of clinically and empirically relevant bilingualism-associated variables which may guide future research and neuropsychological practice. In light of the Study 2 findings, Study 3 filled an important gap in the literature by exploring cultural, demographic, and immigration related factors that may influence neuropsychological testing experiences in Germany. The study findings may help the field of cross-cultural neuropsychology serve culturally and linguistically diverse populations more efficiently. Overall, the present thesis contributed to the literature by highlighting the importance and potential of linguistic abilities in the clinical diagnosis and neuropsychological evaluation of individuals with dementia

Redefining bilingualism as a spectrum of experiences that differentially affect brain structure and function

Learning and using an additional language is shown to have an impact on the structure and function of the brain, including in regions involved in cognitive control and the connections between them. However, the available evidence remains variable in terms of the localization, extent and trajectory of these effects. Variability likely stems from the fact that bilingualism has been routinely operationalized as a categorical variable (bilingual/monolingual), whereas it is a complex and dynamic experience with a number of potentially deterministic factors affecting neural plasticity. Here we present the first study investigating the combined effects of experience-based factors (EBFs) in bilingual language use on brain structure and functional connectivity. EBFs include an array of measures of everyday usage of a second language in different types of immersive settings (e.g., amount of use in social settings). Analyses reveal specific adaptations in the brain, both structural and functional, correlated to individual EBFs and their combined effects. Taken together the data show that the brain adapts to be maximally efficient in the processing and control of two languages, although modulated ultimately by individual language experience

A Program Evaluation: Implementing a Dual Language Immersion Program

The research study evaluated the implementation of a kindergarten Spanish dual language immersion program (DLI) using Stufflebeam’s (2003) context, input, process, and product (CIPP) model of program evaluation. The study aimed to determine specific strategies to best implement a learning initiative not just in a stable year but also in a time of duress such as COVID-19. Interviews with the superintendent, chief academic officer, director of global studies, principal, teacher, and teacher assistant and head of household surveys informed the following research questions. Context: What factors were considered when the district implemented the DLI program? Input: What specific resources were needed to implement the DLI classroom? Process: What strategies were employed to initiate the DLI with kindergarten students? Product: How effective was the implementation of the DLI classroom during the initial year? Crisis Leadership: How does a school district program implement change during a crisis? District administration, teachers, and heads of households agreed that the implementation was successful. All stakeholders emphasized the goals for the program were met, which included student growth toward biliteracy, bilingualism, and cultural appreciation. Stakeholder perceptions of the first year were positive, expressing an overall benefit for the students. District administration and teachers highlighted academic data growth. Implications for improvement include strengthening communication, monitoring and feedback, authentic resources, and professional learning

First language education provisions in a second language environment: The effects of learning L1 English as an L2 in Catalonia, Spain

In Catalonia, Spain, native English-speaking children attending state schools are not provided with native language classes, and consequently continue to develop their native language in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes. This poses the question: how is a child’s first language (L1) affected if taught as a second language (L2)? This research examines the effects of language provision on the acquisition of the L1, with a hypothesis that one of the key factors in this process could be the teaching of L1 as an L2. To examine the effects of the variability in L1 teaching provisions, this study uses the recordings of 26 child Frog Story (Mayer, 1969) narratives, a methodological tool attested in numerous studies of both first and second language acquisition (Frog Story narrative elicitation; Berman and Slobin, 1994). For the purpose of our central comparison, the narratives were provided by native English-speaking children who attend state schools, where no L1 instruction is offered, and private schools, where L1 instruction is offered. Monolingual data was taken from the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, 1984) for comparison with typically developing native English-speakers. Other factors of the children’s home environment were also taken into consideration, for example the language(s) spoken at home, the age of acquisition and parent nationality. The study examines the variability in performance in the linguistic domains of the lexicon and morphosyntax, and the semantic domain of lexicalisation patterns, and the results show that, when all other relevant factors are controlled, there is indeed a difference due to the nature of the L1 instruction received. This is apparent across all investigated domains. These results are further discussed in the context of the current research on multilingualism, language acquisition, cross-linguistic influence and the bilingual mind

Syntactic Processing and Cross-Linguistic Structural Priming in Heritage Spanish Speakers and Late Bilinguals: Effects of Exposure to L2 English on Processing Illicit Structures in L1 Spanish

This study examines real-time heritage language syntactic processing and tests the hypothesis that some commonly observed properties of heritage languages—apparent instability in grammatical knowledge and divergence from monolingual grammatical norms—can be attributed to cross-linguistic influence from the socially dominant language during online processing. To test this hypothesis, a novel cross-linguistic structural priming experiment based on self-paced listening was conducted with a group of heritage Spanish speakers and late Spanish-English bilinguals to test whether exposure to preposition stranding in English—a feature of core syntax that does not exist in Spanish—could facilitate processing of (ungrammatical) preposition stranding in a subsequently encountered Spanish sentence. Results were subjected to group-level and individual differences analyses with mixed-effects modeling to determine whether any measurable priming effects were influenced by individual differences in exposure, use, and proficiency for Spanish and English. The results indicate that exposure to preposition stranding in English primed the comprehension of structurally-parallel, but illicit, Spanish sentences for some heritage speakers and all late bilinguals. Heritage speakers who had lower fluency in Spanish than English did not show a priming effect, but they processed Spanish preposition-stranded sentences the fastest and gave higher acceptability ratings, suggesting that preposition stranding may be a feature of their Spanish. An analysis of within-language cumulative priming also revealed that repeated exposure to Spanish preposition-stranded sentences facilitated processing for some late bilinguals. No cumulative priming effect was found among heritage speakers and, for both groups, repeated exposure to Spanish preposition-stranded sentences did not modulate the cross-linguistic priming effect. These findings suggest that while some late bilinguals implicitly learned to process Spanish preposition stranding over the course of the experiment (Loebell & Bock, 2003), the cross-linguistic priming effect is most compatible with the structural priming account based on residual activation of abstract syntactic representations shared between Spanish and English (Hartsuiker, Pickering, & Veltkamp, 2004). An analysis of baseline syntactic processing for a separate set of complex grammatical Spanish sentences also showed that heritage speakers and late bilinguals processed these sentences similarly. Like the processing results for Spanish preposition-stranded sentences, heritage speakers showed a processing advantage over late bilinguals. Heritage speakers who were more fluent in Spanish than English also patterned like late bilinguals (showing slower response times) and some late bilinguals but no heritage speakers showed evidence of cumulative priming. Acceptability judgment results also aligned with baseline syntactic processing and cross-linguistic priming results in that heritage speakers who had higher fluency in Spanish than English patterned like late bilinguals. While these results suggest that Spanish preposition stranding may not be entirely ungrammatical for heritage speakers who have significantly higher fluency in English than Spanish, heritage speakers who had higher fluency in Spanish than English were qualitatively identical to late bilinguals in terms of syntactic processing for grammatical and ungrammatical complex sentences, cross-linguistic priming, and grammatical representations. Taken together, the results of the present study suggest that relative fluency in the heritage and dominant language is the most important predictor of heritage language syntactic processing and grammatical representations. These results also provide some of the first evidence that core syntactic processing in the first-learned language is susceptible to influence from a later-learned language for simultaneous, early sequential, and late bilinguals. Together, the findings of this study lend empirical support to the central concept of Putnam and Sánchez’s (2013) model of heritage language grammar and provide indirect evidence that some heritage language characteristics that are regularly observed in heritage language studies using offline measures may be due in part to real-time influence from the dominant language during heritage language processing

Initial construct validation of the Color Figure Mazes Test

Measurement of cognitive abilities across diverse ethnocultural and racial groups has a contentious history, with broad politico-legal, economic, and ethical impact. There is an abundance of literature on attention, concentration, and executive functioning. However, specific literature pertaining to traditionally under-served populations, linguistic minorities and those with low education and literacy levels are limited. This study reports data gathered in an attempt to validate a Spanish language instrument of frontal lobe functioning, called the Color Figure Mazes Test, on monolingual Spanish speaking male day laborers. The instrument was originally developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to study neurocognitive disorders cross-culturally. Correlations were run to assess convergent and divergent validity of intellectual, achievement, and neuropsychological measures with each of the six subtests of the CFM. Additionally, an independent sample t-test was run to assess performance on the CFM test based upon level of education (0-6 years and 7-10 years). Results indicated all subtests of the CFM significantly correlated with education. Additionally, CFM had significantly convergent validity with measures of attention, nonverbal reasoning, motor skills, complex nonverbal reasoning, verbal memory, executive functioning and working memory. The CFM had significant divergent validity with verbal reasoning, verbal fluency, and visual memory. Results will serve to bridge the gap between research and clinical practice for underserved and under-represented populations globally

Growing Up Bilingual: Understanding specific benefits across the mainstream and complementary education sectors

There is a paucity of longitudinal research on the development of younger bilinguals, particularly those with a heritage language (HL). Complementary schools (CS) that promote HL learning have become increasingly prominent and are also underrecognized. This project applied a mixed-methods approach to examine the cognitive, social and educational outcomes of children with or without CS longitudinally. The quantitative component of this research assessed cognitive and social developmental outcomes of 153 bilingual children (aged 4-9 years) across four mainstream primary schools and five CSs across East London. Following initial data collection (timepoint1) in 2019, eleven interviews were conducted with school staff and parents from each setting, focusing on language attitudes and practices, to help explain some of the initial findings. Ninety children (aged 6-12 years) from the initial sample were then revisited in 2021 (timepoint2) following the Covid-19 lockdowns, for reassessment of outcomes. Cognitive measures included executive functioning, attentional control and English object naming. Social measures included strength of ethnic and national identities, and cognitive, athletic and social competences. Teacher ratings of school adjustment were taken at timepoint2 as an educational outcome. Perceived HL and English language proficiency and exposure and family affluence (FA) were measured at both timepoints. Findings indicated the supportive role of CSs in children’s perceived HL proficiency, particularly literacy, and developing ethnic identity. Apart from age, the impact of FA and proficiency of both languages on cognitive and social outcomes were also implicated. The sample showed a decline in perceived HL proficiency and competences post-pandemic, but the decline was smaller among CS-attendees. Interviews further highlighted the challenges of HL learning, the role of CSs in parental engagement, and the efforts by primary schools to support bilinguals’ English with a desire for greater inclusivity. The potential implications of these findings on education and policy are considered