Oral narratives in monolingual and bilingual preschoolers with SLI.

BACKGROUND: The body of literature on narratives of bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) is growing. However, little is known about the narrative abilities of bilingual preschool children with SLI and their patterns of growth. AIMS: To determine the similarities and differences in narrative abilities between preschoolers with and without SLI who are either monolingual or bilingual at two time points. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Forty children completed a narrative retell task in English at two test points. The mean ages were 52 and 58 months at Times 1 and 2, respectively. We examined performance on measures of narrative macrostructure (narrative information) and microstructure (sentence length, number of different words, verb accuracy, first mentions) in monolingual and bilingual children with and without SLI. The bilingual children were from diverse first-language backgrounds and all spoke English most of the time. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: A series of repeated-measures analyses of variance was used with language ability (typical development or SLI) and bilingual status (monolingual versus bilingual) as the between-subjects factors and time (Times 1 or 2) as the within-subjects factor. Results indicated a significant main effect of time for four measures (i.e., Information Score, lexical diversity, sentence length and verb accuracy). The between-subjects analyses indicated a significant difference between the typically developing children and the children with SLI in all measures and a significant difference between monolingual and bilingual children for verb accuracy only. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: This study showed that all four groups of children showed growth over a 6-month period and that bilingual children exposed predominantly to English in the home performed similarly to their monolingual peers in measures of narrative information, sentence length, number of different words and first mentions.

The Development of Cognate Awareness in Child Second/Third Language Learners of French in French Immersion: The Effects of Orthographic Overlap and Cognate Status.

Purpose Our 1-year longitudinal study tracked the development of cognate awareness among second (L2) and third language (L3) learners of French in French immersion in Grades 1 and 2 to explore the impact of orthographic overlap and cognate status (true vs. false) on children's ability to recognize cognate relationships. We also assessed the impact of French L2/L3 status on performance. Method We compared performance on three conditions (true cognates with same and similar spellings, false cognates with same spellings) within and across grades. We used a direct measure of cognate awareness that required children (n = 81) to distinguish true from false cognates presented orally and in print. Results Overall, Grade 1 children failed to recognize cognate relationships between true cognates with similar spellings, but successfully recognized true cognates with same spellings. Performance on all conditions increased significantly between Grades 1 and 2. The greatest improvement was seen on true cognates with similar spellings. Performance on false cognates was inferior to performance on true cognates with same spellings in Grade 1, and inferior to performance on both same and similar spelled true cognates in Grade 2. No differences were found due to L2/L3 status. Conclusions Among sequential learners of L2/L3 French in the early stages of additional language learning, cognate awareness is impacted by the degree of orthographic overlap, as well as by cognate status. Children's ability to recognize cross-language orthographic and semantic relationships improves substantially across the early elementary grades. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16821106.

Predicting growth in English and French vocabulary: The facilitating effects of morphological and cognate awareness.

The present study investigated the contribution of morphological and cognate awareness to the development of English and French vocabulary knowledge among young minority and majority language children who were enrolled in a French immersion program. Participating children (n = 75) were assessed in English and French on measures of morphological awareness, cognate awareness, and vocabulary knowledge from Grades 1 to 3. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to investigate linear trends in English and French vocabulary growth for minority and majority language children and to identify metalinguistic contributions to Grade 1 and Grade 3 English and French vocabulary performance and rate of growth. Results demonstrated a similar pattern of prediction for both groups of children. English and French morphological awareness and French-English cognate awareness significantly predicted concurrent and longitudinal vocabulary development after controlling for nonverbal reasoning, phonological awareness, and word identification. The contributions of morphological awareness to English vocabulary and cognate awareness to French vocabulary strengthened between Grades 1 and 2. These findings highlight the emerging importance of morphological and cognate awareness in children's vocabulary development and suggest that these metalinguistic factors can serve to broaden the vocabulary repertoire of children who enter school with limited language proficiency. (PsycINFO Database Record

Improving Preschool Educators' Interactive Shared Book Reading: Effects of Coaching in Professional Development.

PURPOSE: The objective of this study was to examine the effects of coaching by speech-language pathologists on educators' interactive shared book reading, children's participation in shared reading, and children's language development. METHOD: Thirty-two educators and small groups of preschoolers were randomly assigned to experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group (n = 15) received 4 in-service workshops plus 5 individualized coaching sessions. The comparison group received only the 4 workshops. Participants were video-recorded during a shared book reading activity with a small group of children at pretest and posttest. The video recordings were transcribed and coded to yield measures of conversations, educators' questions, and children's responses. The mean length of utterances of the children's responses was also calculated. RESULTS: There were no significant Time × Group interaction effects for the number and length of shared reading conversations or for the number of participants in these conversations. However, significant Time × Group interactions were observed for the use of educators' experiential reasoning questions, children's experiential reasoning responses, and the mean length of utterances of children's responses. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that coaching increases educators' use of inferential questions, enhancing an interactive shared-reading strategy that had a direct impact on the children's quality and complexity of language.

Effects of coaching on educators' and preschoolers' use of references to print and phonological awareness during a small-group craft/writing activity.

PURPOSE: The current study investigated the effects of coaching as part of an emergent literacy professional development program to increase early childhood educators' use of verbal references to print and phonological awareness during interactions with children. METHOD: Thirty-one educators and 4 children from each of their classrooms (N = 121) were randomly assigned to an experimental group (21 hr of in-service workshops plus 5 coaching sessions) and a comparison group (workshops alone). The in-service workshops included instruction on how to talk about print and phonological awareness during a post-story craft/writing activity. All educators were video-recorded during a 15-min craft/writing activity with a small group of preschoolers at pretest and posttest. All videotapes were transcribed and coded for verbal references to print and phonological awareness by the educators and children. RESULTS: Although at posttest, there were no significant group differences in the educators' or the children's references to print as measured by rate per minute, both the educators and the children in the experimental group used a significantly higher rate per minute of references to phonological awareness relative to the comparison group. CONCLUSION: Professional development that included coaching with a speech-language pathologist enabled educators and children to engage in more phonological awareness talk during this activity.