This explanatory-sequential mix-methods study explored Northeast Texas rural educators' perceptions of language and emergent bilingual (EB) students, and educators' preparation and practices used in the classroom to meet this ever-growing and diverse multicultural group. Educators' ideologies and practices in the United States, especially in…

The rate of autism continues to increase globally across cultures and languages. Inequities exist in early access to an autism diagnosis and necessary evidence-based education and related services for dual-language children in the U.S. This qualitative dissertation study investigated the perspectives and practices of 10 educators and therapists…

Spanish is being lost at an alarming rate in the United States, for most immigrant families within two to three generations of arrival. Previous research indicates that the third generation of Hispanic immigrants typically becomes English monolingual (Veltman 2000; Appel & Muysken 1987; Fishman 1978). This investigation examines the role…

A significant and growing proportion of students in the United States speak primarily a non-English language at home. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of academic achievement patterns among language minority students in the United States. The first essay uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Class…

This dissertation study employed quantitative methods to investigate the impact of adult questioning styles on children's novel vocabulary acquisition during shared storybook reading. In an effort to examine adult qualitative variations in shared storybook readings, two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of noneliciting questions…