Typical items and their production frequencies in English and in Spanish

Spanish–English bilingual child and adult participants in the study were asked to generate as many words as they could for the given categories, first in one language and then in the other. First, the data obtained from 20 adult participants were analyzed to obtain the typical items. The production frequency of each item was calculated as the number of participants out of 20 who had generated that item for the respective category. Next, the five items from each category that had the highest production frequency were tabulated and identified as typical items. The list of 35 typical items in English and Spanish, with their production frequencies, are presented here.<div><br></div><div><div>Shivabasappa, P., Peña, E. D., & Bedore, L. M. (2017). Typicality effect and category structure in Spanish–English bilingual children and adults. <i>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60,</i> 1577–1589.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div

Narrative skills in two languages of Mandarin–English bilingual children

<p><i>Purpose</i>: Narrative skills between Mandarin and English in Mandarin–English (ME) bilingual children were compared, exploring cross-linguistic interactions of these skills, and influences of age and current language experience (input and output) on narrative performance.</p> <p><i>Method</i>: Macrostructure and microstructure in elicited narratives from 21 ME bilingual children were analysed. Language experience was collected by parent report and entered as a covariate. Repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to compare the two languages.</p> <p><i>Result</i>: Children demonstrated better narrative performance in English than Mandarin, with a larger cross-linguistic difference in microstructure than macrostructure. Significant cross-linguistic correlations were only found in children with high Mandarin vocabulary. Age, associated with length of English exposure, only significantly correlated with narrative performance in English. Output had stronger correlations with narrative skills than input.</p> <p><i>Conclusion</i>: Macrostructure may be less variable across languages than microstructure. Children may need to reach a threshold of vocabulary for cross-linguistic interactions of narrative skills to occur. The effect of age in English may be related to increased cumulative English experience. Children may experience a plateau in Mandarin due to insufficient Mandarin exposure. Stronger correlations between output and narrative skills may be attributed to the expressive nature of both.</p