Connecting perception and production in early Catalan-Spanish bilingual children: language dominance and quality of input effects.

This study investigates perception and production of the Catalan mid-vowel /e/-/ɛ/ contrast by two groups of 4.5-year-old Catalan-Spanish bilingual children, differing in language dominance. Perception was assessed with an XAB discrimination task involving familiar words and non-words. Production accuracy was measured using a familiar-word elicitation task. Overall, Catalan-dominant bilingual children outperformed Spanish-dominant bilinguals, the latter showing high variability in production accuracy, while being slightly above chance level in perception. No correlation between perception and production performance could be established in this group. The effect of language dominance alone could not explain the Spanish-dominant participants' performance, but quality of Catalan input (native vs. accented speech) was identified as an important factor behind familiar-word production and the inaccurate representation of the target contrast in the lexicon of the bilinguals' less-dominant language. More fine-grained measurements of experience-related factors are needed for a full understanding of the acquisition of challenging contrasts in bilingual contexts.

Consonants, vowels and levels of specification in the phonological representations of the first lexicon: a review / Consonantes, vocales y niveles de especificación en las representaciones fonológicas del léxico inicial: una revisión

A review of the main studies on the format of lexical representation in the initial stages of language development is presented. Current investigations reveal a significant level of phonological specificity in the representation of words in the first lexicon, even before age two years. These results can be explained from a theoretical framework that posits the existence of multiple levels of encoding and suggests differences in accessing the represented information as a function of task demands or vocabulary size. The existence of possible differences in the degree of specification of vowels and consonants represented in the lexicon is an area of current debate. This article discusses the present state of this debate in the light of re-cent findings from research with different languages, in populations with different linguistic environments (monolingual and bilingual) and from experimental approaches that involve varying degrees of cognitive demands

Se presenta una revisión de las principales investigaciones sobre el formato de representación léxica en etapas iniciales del desarrollo lingüístico. Los resultados actuales, revelan un importante nivel de especificación fonológica en las representaciones del primer léxico, antes incluso de los dos años. Estos resultados se explican desde un marco teórico que plantea la existencia de múltiples niveles de codificación y sugiere diferencias en el acceso a la información representada en función de las demandas de la tarea o del nivel de vocabulario alcanzado. Un área de debate actual se sitúa en torno a la existencia de posibles diferencias en el grado de especificación de las vocales y consonantes representadas en el léxico. Este artículo analiza el estado actual de este debate teniendo en cuenta los resultados recientes obtenidos en investigaciones realizadas en distintas lenguas, con poblaciones de diferente entorno lingüístico (monolingüe y bilingüe) y metodologías experimentales que suponen distinto grado de exigencia cognitiva

Rapid gains in segmenting fluent speech when words match the rhythmic unit: evidence from infants acquiring syllable-timed languages.

The ability to extract word-forms from sentential contexts represents an initial step in infants' process toward lexical acquisition. By age 6 months the ability is just emerging and evidence of it is restricted to certain testing conditions. Most research has been developed with infants acquiring stress-timed languages (English, but also German and Dutch) whose rhythmic unit is not the syllable. Data from infants acquiring syllable-timed languages are still scarce and limited to French (European and Canadian), partially revealing some discrepancies with English regarding the age at which word segmentation ability emerges. Research reported here aims at broadening this cross-linguistic perspective by presenting first data on the early ability to segment monosyllabic word-forms by infants acquiring Spanish and Catalan. Three different language groups (two monolingual and one bilingual) and two different age groups (8- and 6-month-old infants) were tested using natural language and a modified version of the HPP with familiarization to passages and testing on words. Results revealed positive evidence of word segmentation in all groups at both ages, but critically, the pattern of preference differed by age. A novelty preference was obtained in the older groups, while the expected familiarity preference was only found at the younger age tested, suggesting more advanced segmentation ability with an increase in age. These results offer first evidence of an early ability for monosyllabic word segmentation in infants acquiring syllable-timed languages such as Spanish or Catalan, not previously described in the literature. Data show no impact of bilingual exposure in the emergence of this ability and results suggest rapid gains in early segmentation for words that match the rhythm unit of the native language.

Desarrollo léxico en el prematuro: medidas del vocabulario expresivo en el segundo año de vida / Lexical development in preterms: expressive vocabulary measures in the second year of life

Diversos trabajos previos han mostrado que el desarrollo léxico y gramatical puede estar comprometido en niños nacidos muy prematuramente, aunque los resultados de distintas investigaciones no siempre resultan coincidentes. Se presentan aquí los resultados de una muestra de niños sanos, nacidos muy prematuramente ≤ 32 semanas gestación y ≤ 1.500 g de peso al nacer), en los que se obtuvieron medidas del vocabulario expresivo a los 12, 18 y 24 meses (edad corregida por gestación) mediante el Inventario de Desarrollo Comunicativo MacArthur. Los datos de esta muestra se comparan con los obtenidos por tres grupos independientes de nacidos a término, procedentes del mismo hospital y comparables en lengua familiar y estatus socioeconómico. Los resultados muestran diferencias significativas en el vocabulario total expresivo alcanzado a los 18 y los 24 meses, pero no así en el primer nivel de edad analizado. En la composición del vocabulario, distinguiendo entre rutinas, nombres, predicados y palabras gramaticales, observamos diferencias significativas en todas las categorías a los 18 meses, aunque a los 24 meses sólo se mantienen las diferencias relativas a rutinas y nombres. En un segundo análisis de los datos, dividiendo la muestra según el sexo, se comprueba que, tanto a los 18 como a los 24 meses, las diferencias significativas entre prematuros y controles se sitúan exclusivamente en la muestra de niños y se manifestaban en todas las categorías analizadas. En conjunto, estos resultados apuntan a un ritmo inicial de crecimiento léxico (expresivo) más lento en el prematuro, sólo aparente a partir de los 18 meses y con mayor incidencia en la población masculina. Se discute el valor de estos datos en relación con el desarrollo lingüístico posterior en esta población de riesgo (AU)

Previous research has shown that lexical and grammatical development may be compromised in very preterm infants, although results from different studies are not always coincident. Expressive lexicon measures were obtained in a sample of healthy very preterm infants (≤ 32 gestation weeks and birth weight ≤ 1500 g), using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory at 12, 18 and 24 months of age (corrected for gestation). Data from this sample were compared with results from three independent groups of full term infants born in the same hospital and with comparable language background and socioeconomic status. Significant differences were found in total number of words produced at 18 and 24 months of age, but not at the first age level under analysis. Regarding vocabulary composition, significant differences were observed in all categories under study (social words, nouns, predicates and function words) at 18 months of age, but at 24 months significant differences were restricted to the categories of social words and nouns. Further analysis of the data by gender revealed that differences between full term and preterm infants reached significance in the male subgroup, both at 18 and 24 months of age and for all lexical categories. Taken together these results suggest an initially slower expressive lexicon development in the population of infants born preterm, but differences are only evident from age 18 months and with a higher incidence in the male subgroup. The paper discusses the predictive value of these data for later language outcomes in this at risk population (AU)

Vowel categorization during word recognition in bilingual toddlers.

Toddlers' and preschoolers' knowledge of the phonological forms of words was tested in Spanish-learning, Catalan-learning, and bilingual children. These populations are of particular interest because of differences in the Spanish and Catalan vowel systems: Catalan has two vowels in a phonetic region where Spanish has only one. The proximity of the Spanish vowel to the Catalan ones might pose special learning problems. Children were shown picture pairs; the target picture's name was spoken correctly, or a vowel in the target word was altered. Altered vowels either contrasted with the usual vowel in Spanish and Catalan, or only in Catalan. Children's looking to the target picture was used as a measure of word recognition. Monolinguals' word recognition was hindered by within-language, but not non-native, vowel changes. Surprisingly, bilingual toddlers did not show sensitivity to changes in vowels contrastive only in Catalan. Among preschoolers, Catalan-dominant bilinguals but not Spanish-dominant bilinguals revealed mispronunciation sensitivity for the Catalan-only contrast. These studies reveal monolingual children's robust knowledge of native-language vowel categories in words, and show that bilingual children whose two languages contain phonetically overlapping vowel categories may not treat those categories as separate in language comprehension.