Dominantnost jezika dvojezicnih govornika talijanskog I hrvatskog jezika

Because of the high variability in any bilingual population, it is of a great importance to control for language dominance in both research and language assessment. This control is crucial in research in order to form unified groups of participants according to language dominance. In the language assessment of bilingual children, determining language dominance should be a priority. Children exposed to two languages from an early age may acquire them at a slower rate when compared to their monolingual piers. While this lag is hardly noticeable in some children, for others it is significant. Without knowledge about the child\u2019s language skills in the other, non-assessed language, it is impossible to determine if the results of language assessment point to the dominance of one language over another or general language difficulties. In bilingual areas of Croatia, such as Rijeka and Istria, this can be quite a challenge. While language dominance has generally been measured using a large number of different methods, there is no universally accepted procedure. This research uses the results of the Italian and Croatian versions of the TROG test to determine language dominance. Participants were 56 preschool-aged children attending kindergartens with an Italian language programme in Rijeka and Istria. Participants were preselected by their kindergarten teachers as children that might be balanced bilinguals. Using the differences in results between both TROG tests, approximately 70% of children were placed in a balanced bilinguals group. No differences were shown between groups of participants from Rijeka and Istria

Dominantnost jezika dvojezicnih govornika talijanskog I hrvatskog jezika [Language dominance in bilingual speakers of Italian and Croatian language]

Because of the high variability in any bilingual population, it is of a great importance to control for language dominance in both research and language assessment. This control is crucial in research in order to form unified groups of participants according to language dominance. In the language assessment of bilingual children, determining language dominance should be a priority. Children exposed to two languages from an early age may acquire them at a slower rate when compared to their monolingual piers. While this lag is hardly noticeable in some children, for others it is significant. Without knowledge about the child\u2019s language skills in the other, non-assessed language, it is impossible to determine if the results of language assessment point to the dominance of one language over another or general language difficulties. In bilingual areas of Croatia, such as Rijeka and Istria, this can be quite a challenge. While language dominance has generally been measured using a large number of different methods, there is no universally accepted procedure. This research uses the results of the Italian and Croatian versions of the TROG test to determine language dominance. Participants were 56 preschool-aged children attending kindergartens with an Italian language programme in Rijeka and Istria. Participants were preselected by their kindergarten teachers as children that might be balanced bilinguals. Using the differences in results between both TROG tests, approximately 70% of children were placed in a balanced bilinguals group. No differences were shown between groups of participants from Rijeka and Istria

Language dominance in bilingual speakers of Italian and Croatian language

Zbog visoke varijabilnosti unutar dvojezične populacije, poznavanje jezične dominantnosti ključno je i u istraživanjima i za prikladnu jezičnu procjenu. U istraživanjima je takvo poznavanje ključno radi usporedbe ispitanika koji formiraju ujednačenu skupinu, ili radi njihova promatranja s obzirom na jezičnu dominantnost. Za valjanu jezičnu procjenu važno je moći ispitati jezične vještine dvojezične djece te odrediti dominantni jezik. Djeca koja su od najranije dobi izložena dvama jezicima, mogu pokazivati kašnjenja u jezicima koje paralelno usvajaju. Neka djeca ne pokazuju gotovo nikakve razlike u razinama jezičnog znanja, a neka pokazuju značajnije teškoće. Bez spoznaje o jezičnim znanjima u drugom jeziku nemoguće je odrediti jesu li ti rezultati posljedica lošijeg znanja jednog jezika ili općenitih teškoća u jezičnom razvoju. To dovodi do teškoća i u dvojezičnim područjima u Hrvatskoj, kao što su dvojezična područja u Rijeci i Istri, gdje se govore hrvatski i talijanski jezik. Brojni su načini na koje se pokušavalo odrediti jezičnu dominantnost dvojezičnih govornika, ali ne i jedinstvena općeprihvaćena procedura. U ovom istraživanju temeljni kriterij je razlika u standardnim rezultatima hrvatske i talijanske inačice testa TROG. Ispitano je 56 sudionika koji pohađaju vrtićke skupine s programom na talijanskom jeziku, a prepoznati su kao kandidati za ujednačenu dvojezičnost (procjena odgojitelja). Primjenom odabranog kriterija, oko 70 % djece svrstano je u skupinu ujednačenih dvojezičnih govornika, a nisu se pokazale razlike između sudionika iz Rijeke i Poreča i okolice.Because of the high variability in any bilingual population, it is of a great importance to control for language dominance in both research and language assessment. This control is crucial in research in order to form unified groups of participants according to language dominance. In the language assessment of bilingual children, determining language dominance should be a priority. Children exposed to two languages from an early age may acquire them at a slower rate when compared to their monolingual piers. While this lag is hardly noticeable in some children, for others it is significant. Without knowledge about the child’s language skills in the other, non-assessed language, it is impossible to determine if the results of language assessment point to the dominance of one language over another or general language difficulties. In bilingual areas of Croatia, such as Rijeka and Istria, this can be quite a challenge. While language dominance has generally been measured using a large number of different methods, there is no universally accepted procedure. This research uses the results of the Italian and Croatian versions of the TROG test to determine language dominance. Participants were 56 preschool-aged children attending kindergartens with an Italian language programme in Rijeka and Istria. Participants were preselected by their kindergarten teachers as children that might be balanced bilinguals. Using the differences in results between both TROG tests, approximately 70% of children were placed in a balanced bilinguals group. No differences were shown between groups of participants from Rijeka and Istria

Noun and verb knowledge in monolingual preschool children across 17 languages: Data from cross-linguistic lexical tasks (LITMUS-CLT)

This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations

Parental experiences of homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic: differences between seven European countries and between children with and without mental health conditions

The aim of the present study was to examine parental experiences of homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic in families with or without a child with a mental health condition across Europe. The study included 6720 parents recruited through schools, patient organizations and social media platforms (2002 parents with a child with a mental health condition and 4718 without) from seven European countries: The United Kingdom (n=508), Sweden (n=1436), Spain (n=1491), Belgium (n=508), the Netherlands (n=324), Germany (n=1662) and Italy (n=794). Many parents reported negative effects of homeschooling for themselves and their child, and many found homeschooling to be of poor quality, with insufficient support from schools. In most countries, contact with teachers was limited, leaving parents with primary responsibility for managing homeschooling. Parents also reported increased levels of stress, worry, social isolation, and domestic conflict. A small number of parents reported increased parental alcohol/drug use. Some differences were found between countries and some negative experiences were more common in families with a child with a mental health condition. However, differences between countries and between families with and without a mental health condition were generally small, indicating that many parents across countries reported negative experiences. Some parents also reported positive experiences of homeschooling. The adverse effects of homeschooling will likely have a long-term impact and contribute to increased inequalities. Given that school closures may be less effective than other interventions, policymakers need to carefully consider the negative consequences of homeschooling during additional waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics

The native speaker in Italian-dialects bilingualism: insights from the acquisition of Vicentino by preschool children

This paper investigates the bilingualism originating from the native competence of a standard language (Italian) and a vernacular non-standardized local dialect (henceforth, bilectalism). We report results on the comprehension and production of narrative stories by 44 3- to 5-year-old typically developing children exposed to both Italian and Vicentino from birth. Our findings show that all children produced and comprehended Italian. As for the dialect, children can comprehend Vicentino, despite not producing any dialectal element. The study further revealed an implicational scale in dialectal competence: if a child exhibits some productions with dialectal syntax, s/he also produces dialects at the phonological, morphological, and lexical levels. These findings are in line with the dialectological studies on adult speakers: dialectal competence should be arranged along a fine-grained continuum and the dialectal speaker should be considered as a multi-factorial notion. Our study extends this observation to children’s dialectal acquisition

Status socioeconomico ed esposizione multilingue: quali effetti sulle abilit\ue0 linguistiche e cognitive in bambini di et\ue0 prescolare?

Status socioeconomico (SES) ed esposizione multilingue (EM), sono due fattori contestuali ampiamente studiati per la loro influenza sullo sviluppo cognitivo e linguistico in et\ue0 precoce (Meir & Armon-Lotem, 2017). Un SES medio-basso \ue8 di frequente associato all\u2019EM, dunque risulta particolarmente difficile distinguere l\u2019influenza di ciascuno di essi sulle traiettorie di sviluppo. Lo scopo del presente studio \ue8 quello di analizzare gli effetti unici e specifici di SES ed EM sulle abilit\ue0 cognitive e linguistiche in bambini di et\ue0 prescolare. Un totale di 115 bambini (et\ue0 media = 62,5 mesi, DS = 7,05 mesi) sono stati valutati su un\u2019ampia gamma di abilit\ue0 cognitive (inibizione, shifting, memoria di lavoro e ToM) e linguistiche (vocabolario recettivo, comprensione grammaticale e comprensione del testo orale). Informazioni circa SES (reddito e istruzione) ed esposizione alla lingua Italiana (attuale e cumulativa), sono state rilevate attraverso un questionario compilato dai genitori. Nel gruppo finale (N =111) sono stati individuati 28 bambini bilingui (provenienti da famiglie con L1 diversa dall\u2019Italiano ed esposti ad istruzione formale in Italiano per almeno 2 anni). Sono state condotte una serie di analisi di regressione gerarchica con predittori et\ue0, SES, EM (l\u2019ordine di entrata dei due fattori \ue8 stato invertito per verificare il contributo specifico di ognuno) ed interazione SESxEM, sui punteggi ottenuti in ciascun compito. I risultati rivelano effetti indipendenti del fattore SES ed EM: le prestazioni nei compiti cognitivi e linguistici sono migliori all\u2019aumentare del SES, al netto degli altri fattori; EM influisce in modo diverso su abilit\ue0 linguistiche e cognitive: a tutti i livelli di SES, i monolingui ottengono prestazioni migliori nei compiti linguistici mentre i bilingui mostrano un vantaggio nell\u2019inibizione e TOM. Infine, ad eccezione della prestazione al compito di ToM in cui si riscontra un vantaggio solo per i bilingui ad alto SES, non si evidenziano interazioni significative tra i due fattori. Il presente studio fornisce nuove prove a sostegno dell\u2019ipotesi del vantaggio cognitivo del bilinguismo (Calvo & Bialystok, 2014) e sugli effetti indipendenti di SES ed EM sulle traiettorie di sviluppo linguistico e cognitivo dei bambini in et\ue0 prescolare (cf. Gathercole et al., 2015). Tali risultati hanno importanti implicazioni pratiche sottolineando la necessit\ue0 di considerare fattori contestuali sia in fase di valutazione che di progettazione educativa

A comparison between word and nonword reading in Down syndrome: The role of phonological awareness

In order to examine whether any observed relationship between phonological awareness and reading ability in Down syndrome reflects the typical use of a phonologically based approach to reading, 12 children and young adults with Down syndrome were assessed for reading and phonological awareness skills. They were compared to a control group of 14 typically developing 6- and 7-year-olds of comparable word reading abilities. Results showed that, although individuals with Down syndrome had impaired nonword reading and phonological awareness skills, the same relationship held between these two abilities as was observed in the group of typically developing children. Moreover, individuals with Down syndrome read at least as well as the typically developing children when the task required a visual reading strategy (reading irregular words)