Purpose: We examined the neurocognitive bases of lexical morphology in children of varied reading abilities to understand the role of meaning-based skills in learning to read with dyslexia.
Method: Children completed auditory morphological and phonological awareness tasks during functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. We first examined the relation between lexical morphology and phonological processes in typically developing readers (Study 1, = 66, = 8.
Over the course of literacy development, children learn to recognize word sounds and meanings in print. Yet, they do so differently across alphabetic and character-based orthographies such as English and Chinese. To uncover cross-linguistic influences on children's literacy, we asked young Chinese-English simultaneous bilinguals and English monolinguals (N = 119, ages 5-10) to complete phonological and morphological awareness (MA) literacy tasks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiversity and variation in language experiences, such as bilingualism, contribute to heterogeneity in children's neural organization for language and brain development. To uncover sources of such heterogeneity in children's neural language networks, the present study examined the effects of bilingual proficiency on children's neural organization for language function. To do so, we took an innovative person-specific analytical approach to investigate young Chinese-English and Spanish-English bilingual learners of structurally distinct languages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFunctional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) promises to be a leading non-invasive neuroimaging method due to its portability and low cost. However, concerns are rising over its inclusivity of all skin tones and hair types (Parker and Ricard, 2022, Webb et al., 2022).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWords' morphemic structure and their orthographic representations vary across languages. How do bilingual experiences with structurally distinct languages influence children's morphological processes for word reading? Focusing on English literacy in monolinguals and bilinguals ( = 350, ages 5-9), we first revealed unique contributions of derivational ( ) and compound () morphology to early word reading. We then examined mechanisms of bilingual transfer in matched samples of Spanish-English and Chinese-English dual first language learners.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study aimed to clarify the relations between morphological awareness and literacy skills in Spanish and English in young simultaneous bilingual learners. Guided by theoretical perspectives on the associations between morphological awareness and word- versus sentence-level literacy skills, and their transfer between bilinguals' two languages, we asked bilingual children ( = 90; = 8.07 years old) to complete dual-language literacy assessments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Children who speak one language at home and a different language at school may be at higher risk of falling behind in their academic achievement when schooling is disrupted. The present study examined the effects of COVID-19-related school disruptions on English language and literacy development among monolingual and bilingual children in the US. All children attended English-only schools that implemented varied forms of virtual and hybrid schooling during the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article documents a functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging dataset deposited in Deep Blue Data. The dataset included neuroimaging and behavioral data from = 343 children aged 5-11 with a diverse linguistic background, including children who are English monolingual, Chinese-English, and Spanish-English bilingual. Children completed phonological and morphological awareness tasks in each of their languages during fNIRS neuroimaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow do early bilingual experiences influence children's neural architecture for word processing? Dual language acquisition can yield common influences that may be shared across different bilingual groups, as well as language-specific influences stemming from a given language pairing. To investigate these effects, we examined bilingual English speakers of Chinese or Spanish, and English monolinguals, all raised in the US (N = 152, ages 5-10). Children completed an English morphological word processing task during fNIRS neuroimaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigates the cross-linguistic transfer of literacy skills in Spanish-English, Chinese-English bilingual, and English monolingual children (N = 283, 5-10 years). Research question 1 examines English literacy and asks how phonological and morpho-semantic skills contribute to word reading as a function of children's language background. Structural equation modeling revealed contrasting bilingual effects: compared to English monolinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals relied more on phonological awareness in word reading, whereas Chinese-English bilinguals relied more on lexical knowledge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMorphological awareness, or sensitivity to units of meaning, is an essential component of reading comprehension development. Current neurobiological models of reading and dyslexia have largely been built upon phonological processing models, yet reading for meaning is as essential as reading for sound. To fill this gap, the present study explores the relation between children's neural organization for morphological awareness and successful reading comprehension in typically developing and impaired readers.
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