Subcortical and cerebellar volume differences in bilingual and monolingual children: An ABCD study.

Research suggests that bilingual children experience an extension or delay in the closing of the sensitive/critical period of language development due to multiple language exposure. Moreover, bilingual experience may impact the development of subcortical regions, although these conclusions are drawn from research with adults, as there is a scarcity of research during late childhood and early adolescence. The current study included 1215 bilingual and 5894 monolingual children from the ABCD Study to examine the relationship between subcortical volume and English vocabulary in heritage Spanish bilingual and English monolingual children, as well as volumetric differences between the language groups.

Cortical Thickness Is Related to Variability in Heritage Bilingual Language Proficiency.

Research suggests that bilingual experience is associated with gray matter changes, such that initial language gains are associated with expansion and language expertise is associated with renormalization. Previous studies on language proficiency development primarily focused on between-subjects, quasiexperimental comparisons of monolinguals and bilinguals. This study proposes a new paradigm to examine language expertise and cortical thickness within heritage bilinguals ( = 215), as well as between bilinguals and monolinguals ( = 145), using data combined from eight previous magnetic resonance imaging studies.

Factors predicting secondary school language course enrollment and performance among U.S. heritage speakers of Spanish.

Introduction: While a growing body of research indicates that Spanish language courses can promote Spanish maintenance and lead to overall improved educational outcomes among heritage speakers, there is little empirical or longitudinal evidence of factors that shape their enrollment in Spanish language courses at the secondary level. To address this issue, the current study takes a large-scale, longitudinal approach to investigate rates of enrollment in secondary school (6th-12th grade) Spanish and other non-English language courses, as well as factors that predict heritage speakers' enrollment and performance in non-English language courses.

Method: We analyzed subsample data from the Miami School Readiness Project (MSRP), a large-scale, longitudinal study consisting of 17,341 heritage speakers of Spanish (47% female, 95.

Early bilingualism predicts enhanced later foreign language learning in secondary school.

Foreign language learning is generally not required in the United States, despite its link to various cognitive and social benefits later in life. Students who speak a home language different from the instructional language of school may experience unique benefits when learning additional languages in school. The present study examined whether students' early language status (monolingual, dual language learner [DLL], or bilingual) in Kindergarten predicts later foreign language course enrollment and performance in middle and high school.

Cortical Thickness in bilingual and monolingual children: Relationships to language use and language skill.

There is a growing body of evidence based on adult neuroimaging that suggests that the brain adapts to bilingual experiences to support language proficiency. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is a useful source of data for evaluating this claim during childhood, as it involves data from a large sample of American children. Using the baseline ABCD Study data collected at ages nine and ten, the goal of this study was to identify differences in cortical thickness between bilinguals and monolinguals and to evaluate how variability in English vocabulary and English use within bilinguals might explain these group differences.