Spanish Phonological Awareness in Kindergarten Uniquely Supports Second-Grade English Morphological Awareness in Spanish-English Dual Language Learners.

Purpose: This study investigated the longitudinal, cross-linguistic developmental relationships of phonological awareness (PA), letter identification (letter ID), and morphological awareness (MA) in 71 heritage Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) in kindergarten and second grade.

Method: Multiple linear regression was used to test if kindergarten Spanish and English PA (sound elision and sound matching) and letter ID significantly predicted later English MA (oral derived word stress judgment, oral derivational morpheme blending, written derived word decomposition, and morphologically complex word spelling) performance in second grade.

Results: Cross-linguistically, the PA skill of sound matching in kindergarten was the most reliable predictor of MA in second grade for Spanish-English DLLs.

Cross-linguistic contributions of acoustic cues and prosodic awareness to first and second language vocabulary knowledge.

Background: Several studies have revealed that prosody contributes to reading acquisition. However, the relation between awareness of prosodic patterns and different facets of language ability (e.g.

Allophony in English Language Learners: The Case of Tap in English and Spanish.

Purpose The objective of this study was to examine tap production by English language learners (ELLs) in kindergarten whose 1st language is Spanish. The conflicting status of tap in Spanish and English could present challenges for allophonic learning in 2nd language for ELLs. Prior research has evaluated acquisition of other allophone pairs, but none has focused exclusively on tap.

Difficulties Using Standardized Tests to Identify the Receptive Expressive Gap in Bilingual Children's Vocabularies.

Receptive standardized vocabulary scores have been found to be much higher than expressive standardized vocabulary scores in children with Spanish as L1, learning L2 (English) in school (Gibson et al., 2012). Here we present evidence suggesting the receptive-expressive gap may be harder to evaluate than previously thought because widely-used standardized tests may not offer comparable normed scores.

Stress Judgment and Production in English Derivation, and Word Reading in Adult Mandarin-Speaking English Learners.

For monolingual English-speaking children, judgment and production of stress in derived words, including words with phonologically neutral (e.g., -ness) and non-neutral suffixes (e.

Metalinguistics, stress accuracy, and word reading: does dialect matter?

Purpose: The authors examined the influence of demographic variables on nonmainstream American English (NMAE) use; the differences between NMAE speakers and mainstream American English (MAE) speakers on measures of metalinguistics, single-word reading, and a new measure of morphophonology; and the differences between the 2 groups in the relationships among the measures.

Method: Participants were typically developing 3rd graders from Memphis, TN, including 21 MAE and 21 NMAE speakers. Children received a battery of tests measuring phonological and morphological awareness (PA and MA), morphophonology (i.

The receptive-expressive gap in the vocabulary of young second-language learners: Robustness and possible mechanisms.

Adults and children learning a second language show difficulty accessing expressive vocabulary that appears accessible receptively in their first language (L1). We call this discrepancy the receptive-expressive gap. Kindergarten Spanish (L1) - English (L2) sequential bilinguals were given standardized tests of receptive and expressive vocabulary in both Spanish and English.

Caregivers' suffix frequencies and suffix acquisition by language impaired, late talking, and typically developing children.

Acquisition of regular inflectional suffixes is an integral part of grammatical development in English and delayed acquisition of certain inflectional suffixes is a hallmark of language impairment. We investigate the relationship between input frequency and grammatical suffix acquisition, analyzing 217 transcripts of mother-child (ages 1 ; 11-6 ; 9) conversations from the CHILDES database. Maternal suffix frequency correlates with previously reported rank orders of acquisition and with child suffix frequency.

Hesitation patterns in third grade children's derived word productions.

Hesitations have been considered to serve both cognitive and linguistic functions. This study presents analyses of children's hesitations while producing English derived words with the suffix -ity. Two questions were considered: Do children's linguistic skills influence their use and frequency of hesitations when producing derived words, and do children's use of hesitations vary as a function of word frequency.

Derivational morphophonology: exploring errors in third graders' productions.

Purpose: This study describes a post hoc analysis of segmental, stress, and syllabification errors in third graders' productions of derived English words with the stress-changing suffixes -ity and -ic. We investigated whether (a) derived word frequency influences error patterns, (b) stress and syllabification errors always co-occur, and (c) derived word stress pattern affects errors.

Method: A total of 1,900 productions from 81 third-grade children were transcribed and coded.

Third graders' metalinguistic skills, reading skills, and stress production in derived English words.

Purpose: This study examined relationships between 3rd graders' metalinguistic skills (phonological and morphological awareness), reading skills (decoding and word identification), and accurate stress production in derived words with stress-changing suffixes.

Method: Seventy-six typically developing 3rd-grade children (M=8;8[years;months]) participated in a battery of tests measuring general oral language ability, phonological and morphological awareness skills, reading skills, and derived word production.

Results: Significant positive correlations between stress accuracy in derived words and all other measures were found.

Exploration of lexical-semantic factors affecting stress production in derived words.

Purpose: This study examined whether lexical frequency, semantic knowledge, or sentence context affect children's production of primary stress in derived words with stress-changing suffixes (e.g., -ity).

School-aged children's phonological production of derived English words.

Purpose: Little is known about the phonological aspects of derivational processes. Neutral suffixes (e.g.

English derivational suffix frequency and children's stress judgments.

Considering the importance of word and stem frequency in the adult lexical processing literature, and the effect of input frequency on children's acquisition of words (Tardif, Shatz, and Naigles, 1997), it was hypothesized that children's acquisition of English morphologically conditioned stress alternations would be affected by the frequency with which children were exposed to different stress-changing suffixes (e.g., -tion, -ity, and -ic).