Word learning in bilingual children

In a 21st-century super-diverse world, young children are likely to speak different first languages which are not the majority language of society. For some children, preschool is one of the few environments where they experience this majority language. A pressing issue encountered by preschool teachers is how to communicate with these children and how to help these children acquire the majority language they need for a successful school entry. Building a repertoire of words in the majority language is one of the first steps. Strategies that monolingual children use to map words to their referents in the environment have been of interest for 60 years. However, less is known about the early development of word learning in bilingual children. This thesis, therefore, seeks to understand how monolingual and bilingual children utilise different strategies to learn words using experimental methods and look at how preschool teachers communicate with children in a preschool setting via naturalistic observation. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to identify and develop strategies that preschool teachers can use to foster children’s development of the majority language. In two experimental studies, this thesis examined (1) how monolingual and bilingual preschoolers learn words from speakers of different languages through mutual exclusivity and the acceptance of lexical overlap, and (2) whether and how socio-pragmatic cues influence monolingual and bilingual language learners’ learning of one-to-one and two-to-one word-object mappings through cross-situational statistics. In two observational studies, this thesis looked into whether and how preschool teachers in a UK setting communicated differently with monolingual preschoolers and preschoolers learning English as an additional language (EAL). The thesis also set out to identify the linguistic features of preschool talk that could predict preschoolers’, especially EAL children’s, language development. The findings of the experimental studies show a complex interaction between the different word-learning strategies and prior language experience, and the results suggest that word-learning strategies available to monolingual and bilingual learners are the same but used differently. The findings of the observational studies show that preschool teacher talk to EAL children, in terms of lexical diversity and syntactic complexity, affects the children’s development of English, suggesting that preschool teachers’ language use could scaffold and support EAL children’s acquisition of English. The findings of this thesis suggest that matching language input to EAL children’s English level and setting up learning situations that closely mimic those of bilingual word learning may be helpful strategies for preschool teachers to support EAL children’s English development

Simulating bilingual word learning: Monolingual and bilingual adults’ use of cross-situational statistics

Children learning language in multilingual settings have to learn that objects take different labels within each different language to which they are exposed. Previous research has shown that adults can learn one-to-one and two-to-one word-object mappings via cross-situational statistical learning (CSSL), and that socio-pragmatic cues may differentially influence monolingual and bilingual adults’ learning of such mappings. However, the extent to which monolingual and bilingual learners can keep track of multiple labels from multiple speakers has not yet been investigated. We manipulated the number of speakers in a CSSL task that involved learning both mapping types. We successfully replicated previous studies that found that both monolinguals and bilinguals could learn both types of mappings via CSSL. In addition, we found that bilinguals showed a steeper learning rate for two-to-one mappings than monolinguals, and bilinguals were more likely to accept two words for the same object than monolinguals. These results show that the effect of speaker identity on tracking word-object mappings varies according to language experience

The sound of silence: Reconsidering infants' object categorization in silence, with labels, and with nonlinguistic sounds

A large body of research based on a specific stimulus set (dinosaur/fish) has argued that auditory labels and novel communicative signals (such as beeps used in a communicative context) facilitate category formation in infants, that such effects can be attributed to the auditory signals' communicative nature, and that other auditory stimuli have no effect on categorization. A contrasting view, the auditory overshadowing hypothesis, maintains that auditory signals disrupt processing of visual information and, therefore, interfere with categorization, with more unfamiliar sounds having a more disruptive effect than familiar ones. Here, we used the dinosaur/fish stimulus set to test these contrasting theories in two experiments. In Experiment 1 (N = 17), we found that 6-month-old infants were able to form categories of these stimuli in silence, weakening the claim that labels facilitated their categorization in infants. These results imply that prior findings of no categorization of these stimuli in the presence of nonlinguistic sounds must be due to disruptive effects of such sounds. In Experiment 2 (N = 17), we showed that familiarity modulated the disruptive effect of nonlinguistic sounds on infants' categorization of these stimuli. Together, these results support the auditory overshadowing hypothesis and provide new insights into the interaction between visual and auditory information in infants' category formation

Adapting to children’s individual language proficiency: An observational study of preschool teacher talk addressing monolinguals and children learning English as an additional language

In an increasingly diverse society, young children are likely to speak different first languages that are not the majority language of society. Preschool might be one of the first and few environments where they experience the majority language. The present study investigated how preschool teachers communicate with monolingual English preschoolers and preschoolers learning English as an additional language (EAL). We recorded and transcribed four hours of naturalistic preschool classroom activities and observed whether and how preschool teachers tailored their speech to children of different language proficiency levels and linguistic backgrounds (monolingual English: n = 13; EAL: n = 10), using a suite of tools for analysing quantity and quality of speech. We found that teachers used more diverse vocabulary and more complex syntax with the monolingual children and children who were more proficient in English, showing sensitivity to individual children’s language capabilities and adapting their language use accordingly

Demographic Form Templates

Sample template forms for demographic data collection

A Unified Approach to Demographic Data Collection for Research with Young Children Across Diverse Cultures

MB Demographic

A Unified Approach to Demographic Data Collection for Research with Young Children Across Diverse Cultures

Culture is a key determinant of children’s development both in its own right and for understanding the generalizability of developmental phenomena. Studying the role of culture in development requires information about participants’ demographic backgrounds. However, both reporting and treatment of demographic data are limited and inconsistent in child development research. A barrier to reporting demographic data in a consistent fashion is that no standardized tool currently exists to collect these data. Variation in cultural expectations, family structures, and life circumstances across communities make the creation of a unifying instrument challenging. Here, we present a framework to standardize demographic reporting for early child development (birth to 3 years of age), focusing on six sociodemographic construct categories: biological information, gestational status, health status, community of descent, caregiving environment, and socioeconomic status. For each, we discuss potential measurement items and provide guidance for their use and adaptation to different contexts. These items are stored in a repository of context-adapted questionnaires that provide a consistent approach to obtaining and reporting demographic information so that these data can be archived and shared in a more standardized format. The public significance of this work is to facilitate diversification of participants within developmental psychology by providing a framework for capturing demographic diversity

A unified approach to demographic data collection for research with young children across diverse cultures

Culture is a key determinant of children's development both in its own right and as a measure of generalizability of developmental phenomena. Studying the role of culture in development requires information about participants' demographic backgrounds. However, both reporting and treatment of demographic data are limited and inconsistent in child development research. A barrier to reporting demographic data in a consistent fashion is that no standardized tool currently exists to collect these data. Variation in cultural expectations, family structures, and life circumstances across communities make the creation of a unifying instrument challenging. Here, we present a framework to standardize demographic reporting for early child development (birth to 3 years of age), focusing on six core sociodemographic construct categories: biological information, gestational status, health status, community of descent, caregiving environment, and socioeconomic status. For each category, we discuss potential constructs and measurement items and provide guidance for their use and adaptation to diverse contexts. These items are stored in an open repository of context-adapted questionnaires that provide a consistent approach to obtaining and reporting demographic information so that these data can be archived and shared in a more standardized format. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

A unified approach to demographic data collection for research with young children across diverse cultures.

Culture is a key determinant of children’s development both in its own right and as a measure of generalizability of developmental phenomena. Studying the role of culture in development requires information about participants’ demographic backgrounds. However, both reporting and treatment of demographic data are limited and inconsistent in child development research. A barrier to reporting demographic data in a consistent fashion is that no standardized tool currently exists to collect these data. Variation in cultural expectations, family structures, and life circumstances across communities make the creation of a unifying instrument challenging. Here, we present a framework to standardize demographic reporting for early child development (birth to 3 years of age), focusing on six core sociodemographic construct categories: biological information, gestational status, health status, community of descent, caregiving environment, and socioeconomic status. For each category, we discuss potential constructs and measurement items and provide guidance for their use and adaptation to diverse contexts. These items are stored in an open repository of context-adapted questionnaires that provide a consistent approach to obtaining and reporting demographic information so that these data can be archived and shared in a more standardized format