Considers whether the findings on referential properties of root infinitives in monolingual children are replicated in a bilingual situation. Testing a proposal by Hulk and Muller (2000), investigates whether and how crosslinguistic influence manifests itself, using original longitudinal data from a bilingual German/English child. The bilingual…

In 2 picture-naming and 2 grammaticality judgment experiments, the authors explored how the phonological form of a word, especially its termination, affects gender processing by monolinguals and unbalanced bilinguals speaking German. The results of the 2 experiments with native German speakers yielded no significant differences: The reaction times…

The current popular case against the use of standardised ability tests in bilingual assessment is not as unequivocal as may be commonly assumed. Evidence currently available indicates that such tests generally measure the same constructs, with equal accuracy, regardless of language backgrounds. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this…

Children with Down syndrome (DS) have cognitive disabilities resulting from trisomy 21. Language-learning difficulties, especially expressive language problems, are an important component of the phenotype of this population. Many individuals with DS are born into bilingual environments. To date, however, there is almost no information available…

Currently, there is a practical demand and necessity for research on how English-as-a-second language (ESL) learners acquire literacy skills, such as spelling. One important issue of this research agenda is how ESL learners apply first-language knowledge to learning to spell in English. Twenty-seven studies were reviewed that investigated the…

To trace how age and language experience shape the discrimination of native and non-native phonetic contrasts, we compared 4-year-olds learning either English or French or both and simultaneous bilingual adults on their ability to discriminate the English /d-[delta]/ contrast. Findings show that the ability to discriminate the native English…

French and Dutch differ regarding the manifestations and lexical functions of the stress pattern of words. The present study examined group differences in stress processing abilities between French-native and Dutch-native listeners, thus extending previous cross-linguistic comparisons involving Spanish-native and French-native adults. The results…

This single-subject case study evaluates effects of treatment of a complex onset on the sound system of a monolingual Spanish-speaking child (female, aged 3;9) with phonological delay. Pretreatment, the child excluded all consonant+liquid clusters, as well as [the alveolar tap] and trill /r/. Immediately following training on [using the alveolar…

A major challenge facing the prekindergarten-12 education system in the United States is the fact that as the population changes, the particular needs of children change with it. One of the largest demographic shifts over the last ten years is the sharp increase in the number of students in public schools who speak English as their second language…

This paper investigates how bilingualism is understood and practiced by adults and students in a dual-language elementary school. In this dual-language program, native English speakers and native Spanish speakers receive language and content instruction in both languages in linguistically integrated settings. I examine the participants' use of…

French second language instruction in Australian schools is seen as endangered by political and economic forces favoring other "priority" languages. Arguments in favor of continued French language instruction are presented. (MSE)

This paper focused on the assessment of phonological skills amongst children with developmental dyslexia. Findings from assessments of English and Hungarian monolingual children with and without literacy deficits and bilingual Filipino children with and without literacy deficits in English indicated that performance on phonological-based tasks…

The activation of arousal components for emotion-laden words in English (e.g. kiss, death) was examined in two groups of participants: English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1, emotion-laden words were rated on valence and perceived arousal. These norms were used to construct prime-target word pairs that were used in…

Background: Although a number of studies have been conducted on normal acquisition in French, systematic methods for analysis of French and normative group data have been lacking. Aims: To develop a systematic method for the analysis of language samples in Quebec French, and to provide preliminary normative data on early lexical and syntactic…

This paper discusses the use of concordances in the classroom, with particular reference to the pedagogical implications of the differences between parallel and monolingual concordances. Examples are given of using the two kinds of concordances in activities that involve language production, reception, correction, and testing. It is concluded that…