This study explored monolingual and multilingual two- to five-year-olds’ reliance on a non-verbal and a verbal cue during word-referent mapping, in relation to vocabulary knowledge and, for the multilinguals, Dutch language exposure. Ninety monolingual and sixty-seven multilingual children performed a referential conflict experiment that pitted a non-verbal (pointing) cue and a verbal (mutual exclusivity) cue. Mixed-effect regressions showed no main effects of vocabulary and language exposure. An interaction between vocabulary and group showed that lower vocabulary scores were associated with a stronger reliance on pointing over mutual exclusivity for multilinguals (but not monolinguals). Furthermore, an interaction between vocabulary, language exposure, and cue word (novel vs. familiar label) indicated that multilinguals with lower exposure and lower vocabulary showed a stronger reliance on pointing over mutual exclusivity when a novel rather than familiar word was used. These findings suggest that multilingual and monolingual children go through different trajectories when learning to map words to referents.

The aim of our study was to examine the longitudinal associations between two forms of second language (L2) knowledge (i.e., explicit and implicit knowledge) and the activity types that facilitate different processing mechanisms (i.e., form- and meaning-focused processing). L2 English speakers completed two tests of explicit knowledge (untimed written grammaticality judgment test and metalinguistic knowledge test) and three tests of implicit knowledge (timed written grammaticality judgment test, oral production, and elicited imitation) at the beginning and the end of a semester of university-level study. To track engagement in the activity types, participants completed self-reported language exposure logs across five days throughout the semester. The results from an autoregressive cross-lag analysis suggest L2 explicit and implicit knowledge influenced each other reciprocally over time. Neither activity type predicted knowledge development. We conclude that language acquisition is a developmental process typified by a dynamic, synergistic interface between explicit and implicit knowledge.

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on the association between nonword repetition (NWR) and language exposure in bilingual children and explored whether the association is influenced by other variables. We performed a blind literature review on ERIC and Google Scholar, a random-effects model meta-analysis and subgroup analyses to test potential moderators. Out of 822 screened articles, we identified 24 works including 1399 children. Significant associations were found using either cumulative or current exposure, language-like nonwords, phoneme NWR scoring, in children with typical language development. Nonsignificant associations were found in studies either using age of first exposure, on children older than six, with less than 50 participants, using NWR lists containing 16-24 nonwords or with participants having different native languages. Weak associations were found when considering whole-word scoring or gray literature. We highlight the contributions of different variables to NWR, and evidence to optimally design NWR for bilingual language assessment.

The world’s languages draw on different reference frames to encode spatial relationships between people, objects or places. We address how subtle differences in reference frame preferences across Spanish and English affect Spanish–English bilinguals’ interpretations of spatial descriptions involving the terms left and right. Bilinguals saw an entity (‘object’; e.g., a vase or a human) with a circle on either side, along with a description of the location of a ball relative to the object (e.g., The ball is to the right of the vase or The ball is on the vase’s right). Their task was to decide which circle indicated the ball’s location. Results showed that syntax and object type contributed differently to bilinguals’ responses: Effects of syntax patterned with Spanish preferences, whereas effects of object type patterned with English preferences. English language exposure subtly affected bilinguals’ response choices. Results are discussed with respect to experience-based theories of language processing.

Several studies on heritage language (HL) acquisition investigate a single linguistic structure, showing how language exposure or cross-linguistic effects affect its acquisition. Here, we consider HL speaking children's mastery of several linguistic structures using a cloze-test. We examine how their language competence is affected by language exposure variables and age. We tested 180 children between the ages of 8 and 16, living in Switzerland and speaking European Portuguese as HL and French, German or Italian as their societal language. The items of the cloze-test cluster around two levels of difficulty, with the items at the second level corresponding to structures that are acquired late in Portuguese monolingual acquisition. Older age and a greater amount of formal instruction in the HL lead to better performance. The role of the amount of formal instruction varies based on the level of difficulty of the target structures. Cross-linguistic influence does not affect the results.

A growing body of research suggests that individual variation in young children’s word comprehension (indexed by response times and accuracy) is structured and meaningful. In this paper, we assess how children’s word comprehension correlates with three factors: socio-economic status (indexed by maternal education), lingual status (based on language exposure), and age. We present results from 91 2- to 3-year-old children using a paired forced-choice task built on a child-friendly touch screen. Effects associated with maternal education and exposure to the tested language (French) were small, and they were greater for accuracy than response times. This pattern of results is compatible with an interpretation whereby the greatest effects of these two variables are on cumulative knowledge (vocabulary size) rather than on processing. Effects for age were larger and affected both accuracy and response times. Finally, response time variation did not mediate the effects of socio-economic status on accuracy or vice versa.

This study investigates the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) as a proxy for input quality, in predicting language proficiency. Different operationalizations of SES are compared, including simple measures (parental education and parental occupation) and complex measures combining two dimensions (among parental education, parental occupation, and deprivation risk). All significantly predict overall English proficiency scores in a diverse group of 5- to 7-year-olds acquiring English and another language. The most informative SES measure in that respect is shown to be a complex measure combining parental education and parental occupation. That measure is used in a second set of analyses showing that different aspects of language are affected differently by variations in SES and in language exposure.

The diversity of experiences among bilingual children is reflected in the variability of abilities in each of their languages. This paper describes the CECER-DLL Child and Family, and Teacher Questionnaires and discusses the utility of these tools. These questionnaires were created to address the need for valid and reliable tools to document contextual characteristics and language experiences of young bilingual children in developmental and educational research. A multi-site validity study using the CECER-DLL Questionnaires demonstrates how children's language skills are influenced by language exposure at home and at school, mothers’ and teachers’ skills in each language, mother's generational status, and languages used during language and literacy activities at home.

Previous work suggests that child-internal and -external factors influence dual language learning (DLL), although more work is needed – to clarify the role of phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and language exposure in particular. Accordingly, we investigated the role of language exposure and PSTM in phonological awareness and receptive and expressive vocabulary development in the majority language in DLL. PSTM was measured with both a language-specific and language-universal nonword repetition task (NWR). Sixty-five DLL preschoolers were assessed twice, five months apart. Results show that maternal majority-language proficiency as well as language-specific and universal NWR predicted all outcomes, whereas length of exposure to the majority language only predicted receptive and expressive vocabulary. Current exposure did not predict any outcome. The findings extend previous research on child-internal and child-external factors as predictors of DLL to phonological awareness and language-universal NWR.

Recent research has focused on bilingual children’s performance on non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR) tasks, but it remains unclear how their scores can be expected to vary as a function of language exposure, which creates challenges for developing age-appropriate performance expectations. With the goal of examining the impact of limited language exposure on these tasks, French NWR and SR performance from 33 first graders (mean age 6 years, 10 months) in early total French immersion in English-speaking Canada was compared to prior work on bilinguals acquiring French in France. With a mean length of exposure of 1 year, 7 months, but a mean cumulative length of exposure of only 3 months, the children in immersion have much less daily exposure to French than the bilinguals in France. The results showed that children in immersion patterned with the other bilinguals for NWR, but had much weaker SR performance. Within-subjects analyses revealed that, for SR, the children in immersion had stronger scores on wh-questions and relative clauses, which suggests that these structures may be less sensitive to language exposure.

Bilingual infants vary in when, how, and how often they hear each of their languages. Variables such as the particular languages of exposure, the community context, the onset of exposure, the amount of exposure, and socioeconomic status are crucial for describing any bilingual infant sample. Parent report is an effective approach for gathering data about infants’ language experience. However, its quality is highly dependent on how information is elicited. This paper introduces a Multilingual Approach to Parent Language Estimates (MAPLE). MAPLE promotes best practices for using structured interviews to reliably elicit information from parents on bilingual infants’ language background, with an emphasis on the challenging task of quantifying infants’ relative exposure to each language. We discuss sensitive issues that must be navigated in this process, including diversity in family characteristics and cultural values. Finally, we identify six systematic effects that can impact parent report, and strategies for minimizing their influence.

We examined if and when English-learning 17-month-olds would accommodate Japanese forms as labels for novel objects. In Experiment 1, infants (n = 22) who were habituated to Japanese word–object pairs looked longer at switched test pairs than familiar test pairs, suggesting that they had mapped Japanese word forms to objects. In Experiments 2 (n = 44) and 3 (n = 22), infants were presented with a spoken passage prior to habituation to assess whether experience with a different language would shift their perception of Japanese word forms. Here, infants did not demonstrate learning of Japanese word–object pairs. These findings offer insight into the flexibility of the developing perceptual system. That is, when there is no evidence to the contrary, 17-month-olds will accommodate forms that vary from their typical input but will efficiently constrain their perception when cued to the fact that they are not listening to their native language.

We report on a large-scale investigation of the mutual intelligibility between five Germanic languages: Danish, Dutch, English, German and Swedish. We tested twenty language combinations using the same uniform methodology, making the results commensurable for the first time. We first tested both written and spoken language by means of cloze tests. Next we calculated linguistic distance at the levels of lexicon, orthography, phonology, morphology and syntax. We also quantified exposure and attitudes towards the test languages. Finally, we carried out a regression analysis to determine the relative importance of these linguistic and extra-linguistic predictors for the mutual intelligibility between Germanic languages. The extra-linguistic predictor exposure was the most significant factor in predicting intelligibility in the Germanic language area. The effect of attitude was very small. Lexical distance, orthographic and phonetic distances were the most important linguistic predictors of intelligibility.

This study assesses the effects of age and language exposure on VOT production in 29 simultaneous bilingual children aged 3;7 to 5;11 who speak German as a heritage language in the Netherlands. Dutch and German have a binary voicing contrast, but the contrast is implemented with different VOT values in the two languages. The results suggest that bilingual children produce ‘voiced’ plosives similarly in their two languages, and these productions are not monolingual-like in either language. Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence between Dutch and German can explain these results. Yet, the bilinguals seemingly have two autonomous categories for Dutch and German ‘voiceless’ plosives. In German, the bilinguals’ aspiration is not monolingual-like, but bilinguals with more heritage language exposure produce more target-like aspiration. Importantly, the amount of exposure to German has no effect on the majority language's ‘voiceless’ category. This implies that more heritage language exposure is associated with more language-specific voicing systems.

At its best, the field of bilingualism is a dynamic discipline informed by diverse perspectives. Carroll's critical review – situated within a linguistics framework – contends that current research on bilingual exposure and language development suffers from a lack of theoretical clarity, and makes little contribution to our understanding of bilingual acquisition. Carroll's push (Carroll) towards greater precision in our thinking about the relation between input and outcomes is an important and welcome challenge. However, it is also critical to keep in mind the social context that motivates much of the current research on bilingual development, and to leave room for studies whose main goal is to provide answers to societally important questions about bilingual children's health and development.

Although the extant literature provides robust evidence of the influence of language exposure and socioeconomic status (SES) on language acquisition, it is unknown how sensitive the early receptive vocabulary system is to these factors. The current study investigates effects of minimal second language exposure and SES on the comprehension vocabulary of 16-month-old children in the language in which they receive the greatest exposure. Study 1 revealed minimal second language exposure and SES exert significant and independent effects on a direct measure of vocabulary comprehension in English-dominant and English monolingual children (N = 72). In Study 2, we replicated the effect of minimal second language exposure in Spanish-dominant and Spanish monolingual children (N = 86), however no effect of SES on vocabulary was obtained. Our results emphasize the sensitivity of the language system to minimal changes in the environment in early development.