Parental report of vocabulary in 3- to 6-year-old Polish children: Reliable but not valid.

BACKGROUND: For over 30 years, parental reports have been used to study the vocabulary of children under 4 years of age. Research exploring parental checklists as a measure of vocabulary in older children is very limited. Typically, authors of parental checklists report the reliability of the developed tools but do not explore validity in terms of the agreement between parental assessments and the children's actual word knowledge. AIMS: We aimed to explore the reliability and validity of a parental checklist for assessing vocabulary in children aged between 3 and 6 years. Furthermore, we aimed to evaluate the agreement between indirect (parental checklist) and direct (picture naming and picture recognition tasks) assessments of children's vocabulary. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: A group of 94 typically developing monolingual Polish-speaking children aged between 3 and 6 years were first directly tested onsite with picture naming and picture recognition tasks (Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks). Subsequently, the participants' parents completed an online checklist containing the same set of 128 items and marked all the words that they had ever heard in their child's spontaneous speech. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The parental checklist demonstrated very high internal consistency. The scores of the parental checklist and vocabulary tasks were moderately correlated. We compared the total number of words marked by parents and the number of items correctly identified by children in the picture naming and picture recognition tasks. In picture naming, we found no difference between the children's scores and the number of words selected by parents. However, parents selected significantly fewer words than children correctly recognised in the picture recognition task. When data were analysed at the level of individual items (i.e., whether parents selected exactly the same items that children answered correctly), we found that the level of agreement was low. The level of agreement correlated negatively with the children's vocabulary; that is, the more words a child knew, the lower the agreement between the direct measure and the parental checklist. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Parental checklists should be used with caution in children aged between 3 and 6 years, especially if the assessed children have a large vocabulary and if item analysis is planned. Such checklists may be of more use in younger children or in children with limited vocabulary. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject Parental checklists are commonly used to assess the vocabulary of children younger than 4 years of age. Previous research has indicated that parental checklists are reliable in terms of internal consistency and valid in terms of predictive and convergent validity. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge This study introduces a parental checklist designed for assessing the vocabulary of monolingual Polish-speaking children aged between 3 and 6 years. Statistical analyses reveal that while the parental checklist exhibits high reliability, and the scores on the checklist correlate with direct measures of vocabulary, the agreement between parental reports and direct vocabulary measures (i.e., validity) is notably low, particularly when examining individual test items. What are the clinical implications of this work? These findings underscore the importance of exercising caution when using parental vocabulary checklists with children aged between 3 and 6 years. These checklists can serve as a replacement for direct vocabulary tests only when the general/overall score is needed. However, when specific words are the subject of interest, parental reports may not be a valid measure.

Identifying developmental language disorder (DLD) in multilingual children: A case study tutorial.

PURPOSE: A long-standing issue in identifying developmental language disorder (DLD) in multilingual children is differentiating between effects of language experience and genuine impairment when clinicians often lack suitable norm-referenced assessments. In this tutorial we demonstrate, via a case study, that it is feasible to identify DLD in a multilingual child using the CATALISE diagnostic criteria, Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) assessment tools, and telepractice. METHOD: This tutorial features a case study of one 6-year-old Urdu-Cantonese multilingual ethnic minority child, and seven age- and grade-matched multilinguals. They were tested via Zoom using Urdu versions of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN), the Crosslinguistic Lexical Task (LITMUS-CLT), the Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Test (LITMUS-CL-NWR), and the Sentence Repetition Task (LITMUS-SRep). RESULT: The child scored significantly lower in the LITMUS tests compared to her peers in her best/first language of Urdu. Together with the presence of negative functional impact and poor prognostic features, and absence of associated biomedical conditions, the findings suggest this participant could be identified as having DLD using the CATALISE diagnostic criteria. CONCLUSION: The result demonstrates the promise of this approach to collect reference data and identify DLD in multilingual children. The online LITMUS battery has the potential to support identification of multilingual DLD in any target language.

Letter-speech sound integration in typical reading development during the first years of formal education.

This study investigated the neural basis of letter and speech sound (LS) integration in 53 typical readers (35 girls, all White) during the first 2 years of reading education (ages 7-9). Changes in both sensory (multisensory vs unisensory) and linguistic (congruent vs incongruent) aspects of LS integration were examined. The left superior temporal cortex and bilateral inferior frontal cortex showed increasing activation for multisensory over unisensory LS over time, driven by reduced activation to speech sounds. No changes were noted in the congruency effect. However, at age nine, heightened activation to incongruent over congruent LS pairs were observed, correlating with individual differences in reading development. This suggests that the incongruency effect evolves at varying rates depending on reading skills.

Early reading skills and the ventral occipito-temporal cortex organization.

Learning to read impacts the way the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOT) reorganizes. The postulated underlying mechanism of neuronal recycling was recently revisited. Neuroimaging data showed that voxels weakly specialized for visual processing keep their initial category selectivity (i.e., object or face processing) while acquiring an additional and stronger responsivity to written words. Here, we examined a large and diverse group of six-year-olds prior to formal literacy training (N = 72) using various data analysis techniques (univariate, multivariate, rapid adaptation) and types of stimuli (print, false fonts, houses, faces) to further explore how VOT changes and adapts to the novel skill of reading. We found that among several visual stimuli categories only print activated a wide network of language related areas outside of the bilateral visual cortex, and the level of reading skill was related to the strength of this activation, showing the development of the reading circuit. Rapid adaptation was not directly related to the level of reading skill in the young children studied here, but it clearly revealed the emergence of the reading network in readers. Most importantly, we found that the reorganization of the VOT is not in fact an "invasion" by reading acquisition-voxels previously activated for faces started to respond more for print, while at the same time keeping their previous function. We can thus conclude that the revised hypothesis of neuronal recycling is supported by our data.

Polish norms for a set of colored drawings of 168 objects and 146 actions with predictors of naming performance.

In this study, we present the first database of pictures and their corresponding psycholinguistic norms for Polish: the CLT database. In this norming study, we used the pictures from Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT): a set of colored drawings of 168 object and 146 actions. The CLT pictures were carefully created to provide a valid tool for multicultural comparisons. The pictures are accompanied by norms for Naming latencies, Name agreement, Goodness of depiction, Image agreement, Concept familiarity, Age of acquisition, Imageability, Lexical frequency, and Word complexity. We also report analyses of predictors of Naming latencies for pictures of objects and actions. Our results show that Name agreement, Concept familiarity, and Lexical frequency are significant predictors of Naming latencies for pictures of both objects and actions. Additionally, Age of acquisition significantly predicts Naming latencies of pictures of objects. The CLT database is freely available at osf.io/gp9qd. The full set of CLT pictures, including additional variants of pictures, is available on request at osf.io/y2cwr.

Parental Report via a Mobile App in the Context of Early Language Trajectories: StarWords Study Protocol.

Social sciences researchers emphasize that new technologies can overcome the limitations of small and homogenous samples. In research on early language development, which often uses parental reports, taking the testing online might be particularly compelling. Due to logistical limitations, previous studies on bilingual children have explored the language development trajectories in general (e.g., by including few and largely set apart timepoints), or focused on small, homogeneous samples. The present study protocol presents a new, on-going study which uses new technologies to collect longitudinal data continuously from parents of multilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children. Our primary aim is to establish the developmental trajectories in Polish-British English and Polish-Norwegian bilingual children and Polish monolingual children aged 0-3 years with the use of mobile and web-based applications. These tools allow parents to report their children's language development as it progresses, and allow us to characterize children's performance in each language (the age of reaching particular language milestones). The project's novelty rests on its use of mobile technologies to characterize the bilingual and monolingual developmental trajectory from the very first words to broader vocabulary and multiword combinations.

The cognitive basis of dyslexia in school-aged children: A multiple case study in a transparent orthography.

This study focuses on the role of numerous cognitive skills such as phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), visual and selective attention, auditory skills, and implicit learning in developmental dyslexia. We examined the (co)existence of cognitive deficits in dyslexia and assessed cognitive skills' predictive value for reading. First, we compared school-aged children with severe reading impairment (n = 51) to typical readers (n = 71) to explore the individual patterns of deficits in dyslexia. Children with dyslexia, as a group, presented low PA and RAN scores, as well as limited implicit learning skills. However, we found no differences in the other domains. We found a phonological deficit in 51% and a RAN deficit in 26% of children with dyslexia. These deficits coexisted in 14% of the children. Deficits in other cognitive domains were uncommon and most often coexisted with phonological or RAN deficits. Despite having a severe reading impairment, 26% of children with dyslexia did not present any of the tested deficits. Second, in a group of children presenting a wide range of reading abilities (N = 211), we analysed the relationship between cognitive skills and reading level. PA and RAN were independently related to reading abilities. Other skills did not explain any additional variance. The impact of PA and RAN on reading skills differed. While RAN was a consistent predictor of reading, PA predicted reading abilities particularly well in average and good readers with a smaller impact in poorer readers.

Coping profiles in multiple sclerosis: Comparison of personal resources.

BACKGROUND: Identifying the profiles of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients who employ similar patterns of coping may improve the understanding of how coping is associated with psychological adjustment. The purpose of this study was to identify the groups of MS patients using different coping strategies and compare the levels of psychological resources across the groups. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study 382 patients with MS completed a battery of self-report measures that assessed their use of different coping strategies, optimism, self-efficacy, health locus of control (HLC), and perception of disease. The groups with different coping profiles were selected by performing a cluster analysis. RESULTS: Five different coping profiles were highlighted and were defined as follows: "Emotional," "Temperate," "Active," "Passive," and "Problem copers." Significant differences were detected between the groups in the levels of optimism, self-efficacy, HLC, and perception of disease. CONCLUSION: Patients with MS use a varied repertoire of coping strategies, which allowed distinguishing coping profiles. Groups representing particular profiles differ in terms of psychological resources. This study contributed to increasing the interest in investigating coping profiles. Identifying subgroups of individuals based on their coping profiles and recognizing the differences is important for providing psychological support.

Separating the influences of late talking and dyslexia on brain structure.

Being a late talker constitutes a risk factor for later neurodevelopmental disorders; however, its neurobiological basis remains unexplored. We aimed to determine the unique and mutual correlates of late talking and developmental dyslexia on brain structure and behavioral outcomes in a large sample of 8- to 10-year-old children in a between-groups design (N = 120). Brain structure was examined using voxel-based morphometry (to measure gray matter volume) and surface-based morphometry (to measure gray matter volume, cortical thickness, surface area, and curvature of the cortex). Behaviorally, late talking and dyslexia are independently connected to language and literacy skills, and late talkers have difficulties in grammar, phonological awareness, and reading accuracy. Children with dyslexia show impairments in all of the above, as well as in vocabulary, spelling, reading speed, and rapid automatized naming. Neuroanatomically, dyslexia is related to lower total intracranial volume and total surface area. Late talking is related to reduced cortical thickness in the left posterior cingulate gyrus and the right superior temporal gyrus, which are structures belonging to the dorsal speech articulatory-phonetic perception system. Finally, a cumulative effect of late talking and dyslexia was found on the left fusiform gray matter volume. This might explain inconsistencies in previous neuroanatomical studies of dyslexia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural patterns of word processing differ in children with dyslexia and isolated spelling deficit.

There is an ongoing debate concerning the extent to which deficits in reading and spelling share cognitive components and whether they rely, in a similar fashion, on sublexical and lexical pathways of word processing. The present study investigates whether the neural substrates of word processing differ in children with various patterns of reading and spelling deficits. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we compared written and auditory processing in three groups of 9-13-year olds (N = 104): (1) with age-adequate reading and spelling skills; (2) with reading and spelling deficits (i.e., dyslexia); (3) with isolated spelling deficits but without reading deficits. In visual word processing, both deficit groups showed hypoactivations in the posterior superior temporal cortex compared to typical readers and spellers. Only children with dyslexia exhibited hypoactivations in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex compared to the two groups of typical readers. This is the result of an atypical pattern of higher activity in the occipito-temporal cortex for non-linguistic visual stimuli than for words, indicating lower selectivity. The print-speech convergence was reduced in the two deficit groups. Impairments in lexico-orthographic regions in a reading-based task were associated primarily with reading deficits, whereas alterations in the sublexical word processing route could be considered common for both reading and spelling deficits. These findings highlight the partly distinct alterations of the language network related to reading and spelling deficits.

The perceived impact of multiple sclerosis and self-management: The mediating role of coping strategies.

Low level of self-management in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) is considered to be a predominant factor that leads to poor rehabilitation efficacy. Studies focusing on the relationship between self-management and psychological variables that can be modified could contribute to expanding the knowledge needed to propose interventional programs aiming at patient activation. This study aimed to analyze whether coping strategies play a mediating role in the association between the perceived impact of MS and level of self-management in people with MS. The cross-sectional study included 382 people with MS. The participants completed the Multiple Sclerosis Self-Management Scale-Revised, Multiple Sclerosis Impact Scale-29, and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations. The study hypothesis was evaluated using mediation analysis. The STROBE checklist specifically prepared for cross-sectional research was applied in this study for reporting. Results indicate that the emotion- and problem-focused strategies of coping can be treated as mediating the association between the MS impact and level of self-management in people with MS. A negative relationship was found between the perceived MS impact and problem-oriented coping, while a positive relationship was found between problem-oriented coping and self-management. Furthermore, a positive relationship was found between the MS impact and emotion-oriented coping, while a negative relationship was found between emotion-oriented coping and self-management. The indirect role of avoidance-oriented coping was not significant. Our study confirms the role played by coping strategies in individuals' self-management. In MS, self-management determined by perceived MS impact can be controlled by decreasing emotional-coping while increasing problem-coping strategies. Our study imparts new knowledge regarding the potential interventions for improving the level of self-management in people with MS. It indicates that recognition of individuals' illness perceptions as well as maladaptive coping strategies can help health professionals identify those who might be having lower level of self-management.

The brain signature of emerging reading in two contrasting languages.

Despite dissimilarities among scripts, a universal hallmark of literacy in skilled readers is the convergent brain activity for print and speech. Little is known, however, whether this differs as a function of grapheme to phoneme transparency in beginning readers. Here we compare speech and orthographic processing circuits in two contrasting languages, Polish and English, in 100 7-year-old children performing fMRI language localizer tasks. Results show limited language variation, with speech-print convergence evident mostly in left frontotemporal perisylvian regions. Correlational and intersect analyses revealed subtle differences in the strength of this coupling in several regions of interest. Specifically, speech-print convergence was higher for transparent Polish than opaque English in the right temporal area, associated with phonological processing. Conversely, speech-print convergence was higher for English than Polish in left fusiform, associated with visual word recognition. We conclude that speech-print convergence is a universal marker of reading even at the beginning of reading acquisition with minor variations that can be explained by the differences in grapheme to phoneme transparency. This finding at the earliest stages of reading acquisition conforms well with claims that reading exhibits a good deal of universality despite writing systems differences.

Children With Dyslexia and Familial Risk for Dyslexia Present Atypical Development of the Neuronal Phonological Network.

Learning to read changes the brain language system. Phonological processing is the language domain most crucial for reading, but it is still unknown how reading acquisition modifies the neural phonological network in children who either develop dyslexia or are at risk of dyslexia. For the two first years of formal education, we followed 90 beginning readers with (n = 55) and without (n = 35) familial risk of dyslexia who became typical readers (n = 70) or developed dyslexia (n = 20). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of phonological awareness using an auditory rhyme judgment task. This task was applied when participants were starting formal education, and repeated 2 years later. By applying two alternative group splits, we analyzed the effects of dyslexia and the effects of familial risk of dyslexia separately. We found that the phonological brain network undergoes reorganization during the first 2 years of formal education. This process proceeds differently depending on the presence of a familial history of dyslexia and reading impairment. Typical readers without risk for dyslexia activate structures responsible for phonological processing already at the beginning of literacy. This group shows reduced brain activation over time during phonological processing, perhaps due to automatization of phonological skills. Children who develop reading impairment present a delay in the development of phonological structures such as the bilateral superior temporal gyri, left middle temporal gyrus, right insula and right frontal cortex, where we observed time and group interaction. Finally, typical readers with familial risk of dyslexia also present an atypical development of the neural phonological structures, visible both at the beginning of reading instruction and 2 years later. These children used a presumably efficient neural mechanism of phonological processing, based on the activation of the precentral and postcentral gyri, and achieved a typical level of phonological awareness.

Age of acquisition of 299 words in seven languages: American English, Czech, Gaelic, Lebanese Arabic, Malay, Persian and Western Armenian.

We present a new set of subjective Age of Acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in seven languages from various language families and cultural settings: American English, Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Lebanese Arabic, Malaysian Malay, Persian, and Western Armenian. The ratings were collected from a total of 173 participants and were highly reliable in each language. We applied the same method of data collection as used in a previous study on 25 languages which allowed us to create a database of fully comparable AoA ratings of 299 words in 32 languages. We found that in the seven languages not included in the previous study, the words are estimated to be acquired at roughly the same age as in the previously reported languages, i.e. mostly between the ages of 1 and 7 years. We also found that the order of word acquisition is moderately to highly correlated across all 32 languages, which extends our previous conclusion that early words are acquired in similar order across a wide range of languages and cultures.

Reading and spelling skills are differentially related to phonological processing: Behavioral and fMRI study.

The manuscript reports a study on a large sample (N = 170) of Polish speaking 8-13 year old children, whose brain activation was measured in relation to tasks that require auditory phonological processing. We aimed to relate brain activation to individual differences in reading and spelling. We found that individual proficiency in both reading and spelling significantly correlated with activation of the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex encompassing the Visual Word Form Area which has been implicated in automatic orthographic activations. Reading but not spelling was found to correlate with activation in the left anterior dorsal stream (anterior supramarginal and postcentral gyri). Our results indicate that the level of both reading and spelling is related to activity in areas involved in the storage of fine-grained orthographic representations. However, only the reading level is uniquely related to activity of regions responsible for the articulation, motor planning and grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence, which form the basis for effective decoding skill.

Reading Acquisition in Children: Developmental Processes and Dyslexia-Specific Effects.

OBJECTIVE: Decreased activation to print in the left ventral, dorsal, and anterior pathways has been implicated in readers with dyslexia (DRs) but also is characteristic for typical beginning readers. Because most studies have compared DRs with their age-matched peers, the observed results could represent a dyslexia phenotype or a developmental delay. This study aimed to disentangle reading and dyslexia effects using 2 control groups matched for age and skill and a longitudinal design. METHOD: Brain response for print was compared in DRs and typical readers (TRs) who, at the beginning of schooling (time point 1 [TP]; 6-7 years old), read on average 3 words per minute, as did DRs at TP1, but improved their reading to an average level, and advanced readers (ARs) who at TP1 read as well as DRs 2 years later (TP3; 8-9 years old). The TR and DR groups were tracked longitudinally to observe neurodevelopmental changes. RESULTS: At TP1, DRs did not differ from TRs. Over time, only TRs developed a neural circuit for reading in the left inferior frontal and fusiform gyri. At TP3, DRs exhibited hypo-activation in these areas compared with age-matched (TRs at TP3) and reading-matched (ARs at TP1) controls. At TP3, TRs showed hypo-activation in the left frontal and bilateral ventral occipital regions compared with ARs, but these effects were nonoverlapping with DR hypo-activations and are partly explained by IQ. CONCLUSION: Decreased activation of the left fusiform and inferior frontal gyri to print in DRs results from an atypical developmental trajectory of reading and cannot be explained solely by lower reading skills.

Letter and Speech Sound Association in Emerging Readers With Familial Risk of Dyslexia.

In alphabetic scripts, learning letter-sound (LS) association (i.e., letter knowledge) is a strong predictor of later reading skills. LS integration is related to left superior temporal cortex (STC) activity and its disruption was previously observed in dyslexia (DYS). Whether disruption in LS association is a cause of reading impairment or a consequence of decreased exposure to print remains unclear. Using fMRI, we compared activation for letters, speech sounds and LS association in emerging readers with (FHD+, N = 50) and without (FHD-, N = 35) familial history of DYS, out of whom 17 developed DYS 2 years later. Despite having similar reading skills, FHD+ and FHD- groups showed opposite pattern of activation in left STC: In FHD- children activation was higher for incongruent compared to congruent, whereas in FHD+ it was higher for congruent LS pairs. Higher activation to congruent LS pairs was also characteristic of future DYS. The magnitude of incongruency effect in left STC was positively related to early reading skills, but only in FHD- children and (retrospectively) in typical readers. We show that alterations in brain activity during LS association can be detected at very early stages of reading acquisition, suggesting their causal involvement in later reading impairments. Increased response of left STC to incongruent LS pairs in FHD- group might reflect an early stage of automatizing LS associations, where the brain responds actively to conflicting pairs. The absence of such response in FHD+ children could lead to failures in suppressing incongruent information during reading acquisition, which could result in future reading problems.

Neither action nor phonological video games make dyslexic children read better.

The prevalence and long-term consequences of dyslexia make it crucial to look for effective and efficient ways of its therapy. Action video games (AVG) were implied as a possible remedy for difficulties in reading in Italian and English-speaking children. However, the studies examining the effectiveness of AVG application in dyslexia suffered from significant methodological weaknesses such as small sample sizes and lack of a control group with no intervention. In our study, we tested how two forms of training: based on AVG and on phonological non-action video games (PNAVG), affect reading in a group of fifty-four Polish children with dyslexia. Both speed and accuracy of reading increased in AVG as much as in PNAVG group. Moreover, both groups improved in phonological awareness, selective attention and rapid naming. Critically, the reading progress in the two groups did not differ from a dyslexic control group which did not participate in any training. Thus, the observed improvement in reading in AVG and PNAVG can be attributed either to the normal reading development related to schooling or to test practice effect. Overall, we failed to replicate previous studies: Neither AVG nor PNAVG remedy difficulties in reading in school children.

Prereader to beginning reader: changes induced by reading acquisition in print and speech brain networks.

BACKGROUND: Literacy acquisition is a demanding process that induces significant changes in the brain, especially in the spoken and written language networks. Nevertheless, large-scale paediatric fMRI studies are still limited. METHODS: We analyzed fMRI data to show how individual differences in reading performance correlate with brain activation for speech and print in 111 children attending kindergarten or first grade and examined group differences between a matched subset of emergent-readers and prereaders. RESULTS: Across the entire cohort, individual differences analysis revealed that reading skill was positively correlated with the magnitude of activation difference between words and symbol strings in left superior temporal, inferior frontal and fusiform gyri. Group comparisons of the matched subset of pre- and emergent-readers showed higher activity for emergent-readers in left inferior frontal, precentral, and postcentral gyri. Individual differences in activation for natural versus vocoded speech were also positively correlated with reading skill, primarily in the left temporal cortex. However, in contrast to studies on adult illiterates, group comparisons revealed higher activity in prereaders compared to readers in the frontal lobes. Print-speech coactivation was observed only in readers and individual differences analyses revealed a positive correlation between convergence and reading skill in the left superior temporal sulcus. CONCLUSIONS: These results emphasise that a child's brain undergoes several modifications to both visual and oral language systems in the process of learning to read. They also suggest that print-speech convergence is a hallmark of acquiring literacy.

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom.

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children's second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing, and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals' performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual and 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years;months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition), and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother's education), gender, non-verbal IQ, and short-term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, and phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children's narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input.