Spanish-English Bilingual Toddlers’ Vocabulary Skills: The role of Caregiver Language Input and Warmth

There is a well-documented link between bilingual language development and the relative amounts of exposure to each language. Less is known about the role of quality indicators of caregiver-child interactions in bilingual homes, including caregiver input diversity, warmth and sensitivity. This longitudinal study examines the relation between caregiver input (lexical diversity, amount), warmth and sensitivity and bilingual toddlers’ subsequent vocabulary outcomes. We video-recorded caregiver-child interactions in Spanish-English Latino homes when toddlers (n = 47) were 18 months of age (M = 18.32 months; SD = 1.02 months). At the 24-month follow-up, we measured children\u27s vocabulary as total vocabulary (English, Spanish combined) as well as within language (Spanish, English). Results revealed that Spanish lexical diversity exposure at 18 months from caregivers was positively associated with children\u27s Spanish and total vocabulary scores at 24 months, while English lexical diversity was positively associated with children\u27s English scores; lexical diversity and amount were highly correlated. Additionally, caregivers’ warmth was positively associated with children\u27s Spanish, English and total vocabulary scores. Together, these factors accounted for substantial variance (30–40%) in vocabulary outcomes. Notably, caregiver input accounted for more variance in single language outcomes than did caregiver warmth, whereas caregiver warmth uniquely accounted for more variance in total vocabulary scores. Our findings extend prior research findings by suggesting that children\u27s dual language development may depend on their exposure to a diverse set of words, not only amount of language exposure, as well as warm interactions with caregivers. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/q1V_7fz5wogHighlightsVideo-recorded observations of caregiver-child interactions revealed warmth and high sensitivity from Latino caregivers.Linguistically-detailed analyses of caregiver input revealed wide variation in the diversity of Spanish and English directed at 18-month-old bilingual toddlers.Bilingual toddlers’ vocabulary (single language, total) was positively associated with caregivers’ diverse input and warmth, thus extending prior findings on bilinguals’ amount of language exposure.Findings suggest that caregivers’ lexical diversity explains more variance in bilingual toddlers’ single language outcomes, whereas warmth explains more variance in total vocabulary scores

Promoting Word Consciousness to Close the Vocabulary Gap in Young Word Learners

A proposed avenue for increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension is instruction that promotes students’ enthusiasm and attention to words, referred to as word consciousness. This study seeks to investigate, at the utterance level, whether and how word consciousness talk is used in classrooms with young word learners and whether this type of talk is associated with student gains in general vocabulary knowledge. Using videotaped classroom (N = 27) observations, this study found evidence of word consciousness talk, with variability of use across classrooms. Multilevel modeling revealed that this kind of teacher talk—operationalized as reinforcing students’ use of words, affirming students’ recognition of word meanings, and helping students make personal connections to words—was positively associated with student gains in general vocabulary knowledge at the end of kindergarten. Findings from this study can provide guidance for teachers seeking strategies to increase students’ general vocabulary knowledge, beyond words taught

Relation Between Bilingual Child Gesture use and Language Development

Gesture serves as a bridge for communication for children who cannot yet fully communicate verbally. Child gesture is closely related to future vocabulary scores (Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009). Many studies with similar results have an English monolingual sample but not many studies have a bilingual sample. In this study, 45 bilingual participant’s gestures and their vocabulary growth were measured to see if a relation between the two existed. We found a negative relation between gesture use at 18-months and vocabulary growth from 18 to 30 months. This is an unexpected result as it does not agree with previous literature