Individual differences differentially influence language domains and learning mechanisms.

Paradis' (2023) keynote article is a timely documentation of the ongoing shift in focus within childhood bilingualism research from investigating the factors that modulate majority or second language (ML/L2) attainment (Chondrogianni & Marinis, 2011) to understanding the sources of variation that lead to minority heritage language (HL) maintenance. This shift of focus into individual differences (IDs) in bilingual performance across both languages reflects converging research carried out in the past twenty years reporting that, when learning barriers are not at stake, bilingual children can reach ML outcomes. It also aligns with research findings suggesting that ML educational or linguistic outcomes are directly related to the successful attainment of HL educational and linguistic milestones, which, in turn, reinforce the need for the HL to be supported.

Measuring the Impact of Bilingualism on Executive Functioning Via Inhibitory Control Abilities in Autistic Children.

One factor that may influence how executive functions develop is exposure to more than one language in childhood. This study explored the impact of bilingualism on inhibitory control in autistic (n = 38) and non-autistic children (n = 51). Bilingualism was measured on a continuum of exposure to investigate the effects of language environment on two facets of inhibitory control.

Linking disambiguation and retention in a developmental eye-tracking study with monolingual and multilingual children.

The disambiguation effect, also referred to as process of elimination, occurs during word learning, whereby novel words are mapped onto new referents, precluding the application of a novel label to a familiar object. Prior studies showed that the emergence and use of disambiguation can be affected by children's vocabulary growth and linguistic experience, such as growing up with more than one language. To test this, we investigated (a) whether monolingual and multilingual children disambiguated a novel word-object mapping, (b) whether they retained a trained, previously seen word-object mapping, (c) whether they retained the novel fast-mapped word-object mapping, and (d) whether and how age, English vocabulary size, and language background modulated disambiguation and retention.

Cue reliability, salience and early comprehension of agreement: Evidence from Greek.

Previous studies across languages (English, Spanish, French) have argued that perceptual salience and cue reliability can explain cross-linguistic differences in early comprehension of verbal agreement. Here we tested this hypothesis further by investigating early comprehension in Greek, where markers have high salience and reliability (compared to Spanish and English) predicting early comprehension, as in French. We investigated two and three-year-old Greek-speaking children's ability to distinguish third person singular and plural agreement in a picture-selection task.

Experiential Measures Can Be Used as a Proxy for Language Dominance in Bilingual Language Acquisition Research.

Language dominance is a multidimensional construct comprising several distinct yet interrelated components, including language proficiency, exposure and use. The exact relation between these components remains unclear. Several studies have observed a (non-linear) relationship between bilingual children's amount of exposure and absolute proficiency in each language, but our understanding of the relationship between language exposure and use and relative proficiency is limited.