Examined understanding of print concepts in preschool children bilingual in English and Hebrew. Found that bilingual children were more advanced than monolinguals, regardless of task (understanding that a printed word's meaning did not change if moved to a new location, making judgments about word length and ignoring the object's size) or whether…

In a previous study, a bilingual advantage for preschool children in solving the dimensional change card sort task was attributed to superiority in inhibition of attention (Bialystok, 1999). However, the task includes difficult representational demands to encode and interpret the task stimuli, and bilinguals may also have profited from superior…

Explains the notion of "individual multilingualism." Multilingual behavior and multilingualism are considered as mental states, and questions about whether there are qualitative neuropsychological differences between multi- and mono-linguals are raised. Multilingualism in small children is briefly discussed. A reference list of 44 items is…

Examines whether an individual's linguistic knowledge, either as a speaker of a particular language or as a bilingual, influences theory of mind development. Three- and four-year-old English monolinguals, Mandarin Chinese monolinguals, and Mandarin-English bilinguals were given appearance-reality, perspective-taking, and false-belief tasks.…

A study investigated phonological patterns in 12 bilingual (Spanish-English) 4-year-old children. There were no significant differences between the two languages on percentage of occurrence for phonological processes, however, children exhibited different patterns of production across the two languages and showed different patterns compared to…

Investigated the communicative interactions of dyads of 4- to 5-year olds during pretend play involving routine, or scripted, events as a function of the children's knowledge of the scripts. The study utilized measures of the quantity and quality of interaction and the strategies employed by the children to establish mutual knowledge. (37…

Results of a 10-item oral language test presented only orally, orally with pictures, and orally with concrete aids replicate earlier research findings showing that bilingual children manipulate language more easily than unilinguals. Unilinguals' errors were due to incomplete development while bilinguals' were caused by that and first-language…

Examines word awareness in 4-year-old children, comparing bilinguals and second language learners with monolingual children. The study controlled for many methodological problems, including the possibility of enhanced word awareness due to early reading. Results indicate that experience with a second language does not promote word awareness at…

This study is an investigation of the degree to which preschool children enrolled in Cantonese-immersion preschools in three areas of the United States differed from their monolingual counterparts in pitch-matching accuracy. In a 2003 study, the author found that in monolingual American English-speaking children, pitch-matching accuracy was most…

Informed by knowledge of linguistics, research findings in the areas of monolingual and bilingual acquisition, dyslexia and speech therapy clinical practice, five factors are proposed to argue that the acquisition of English by young non-native learners can be enhanced by learning activities which take into account factors of developmental…

Tested preschool monolingual speakers of Spanish and English in their native countries on classification of familiar objects through a task assessing strategies in a free sort, a sort with instructions to use natural gender, and one for the Spanish speakers with instructions to use grammatical gender. Results suggest that instructional context and…

Examined the use of the mutual exclusivity constraint in naming objects among young children monolingual in English or bilingual in English/Urdu or in English/Greek. The study used three tests of the constraint: disambiguation, rejection and restriction. Findings revealed that bilingual children used the constraint to a lesser extent than…

Examines the communicative competence of young children acquiring English and French simultaneously in the home by observing how they used their languages during separate play sessions with monolingual strangers and their bilingual parents. Findings reveal that all of the children made some accommodations linked to the monolingualism of the…

A study was conducted to compare the relative performance on yes-no questions of bilingual and monolingual children and to discuss the relationship of semantic development and linguistic development, both in the bilinguals and monolinguals. Eighteen English monolingual, eighteen Japanese monolingual, and eighteen Japanese-English bilingual…

Presents a longitudinal study on the acquisition of first-, second-, and third-person pronouns in 12 French- and 12 English- speaking children. Findings revealed that the mastery of pronouns did not follow the developmental sequence predicted by the speech-role hypothesis; the person-role hypothesis was valid when children were speaking; and the…