bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
On-line sentence interpretation in Spanish–English bilinguals: What does it mean to be “in between”?
Authors: Hernandez Arturo E. , Bates Elizabeth A. , Avila Luis X. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates the real-time costs of sentence processing in early Spanish–English bilinguals. Our results indicate that bilinguals use an amalgam (a combination of L1 and L2 strategies) of monolingual strategies in choosing the agent of a sentence. The reaction time (RT) data, however, reveal a slightly larger language specific component than the choice data. That is, bilinguals appear to fall more “in between” the two monolingual groups in their choice profiles than in their RT profiles. This implies that early bilinguals may be paying a language-specific processing cost in order to maintain an “in between” profile. The nature of the bilingual/monolingual dichotomy and its implications for the study of bilingual language processing are discussed.
Self-reported biliteracy and self-esteem: A study of Mexican American 8th graders
Authors: Huang Gary Gang 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe concept of proficient bilingualism or biliteracy (proficiency in reading and writing in both Spanish and English) has.been used in research on linguistic and academic processes among Mexican American children, but rarely has it been used to examine noncognitive outcomes in this population. Biliteracy – a quality that strengthens cultural identity and facilitates adaptation to the mainstream society – hypothetically contributes to the growth of self-esteem among Mexican Americans. Biliteracy is arguably more relevant to the development of self-concept among Mexican American children than Spanish proficiency or a general notion of bilingualism. Drawing on data from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS 88), this article compares self-deprecation, self-confidence, and fatalistic belief among Mexican American 8th graders who reported themselves as biliterate, English monoliterate, Spanish monoliterate, or oral bilingual. Controlling for the effects of sociodemographic background and school experience, ordinary least-square regression analysis generated supportive results. Mexican American children who identified themselves as biliterate had higher self-confidence than other groups (English or Spanish monoliterates and oral bilinguals). Logistic regression analysis found a strong interaction effect between self-identity and birthplace (United States or foreign) and parents' education. Among students born in the United States, parents' education was negatively related to biliterate identity. In contrast, parents' education was positively associated with biliterate identity among those who were foreign-born.
The effect of bilingualism on cognitive ability: A test of the level of bilingualism hypothesis
Authors: Jarvis Lorna H. , Danks Joseph H. , Merriman William E. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTDoes bilingualism facilitate the development of cognitive abilities, and if so, how? According to the level of bilingualism hypothesis (Diaz, 1983), only in the early stages of second language acquisition does bilingualism foster cognitive ability. This hypothesis was tested on a sample of 3rd and 4th grade Mexican Spanish-English bilinguals with low English proficiency. Knowledge of Spanish and English in phonology, vocabulary, and syntax was measured. Nonverbal general intelligence was assessed with the Raven Colored Progressive Matrices, and verbal intelligence was assessed with a subtest of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery. No relationship was found between degree of bilingualism and nonverbal intelligence, contrary to the level of bilingualism hypothesis. The results suggest that the effects of bilingualism on cognitive development are not solely dependent on the level of second language proficiency.
Referential communication skills of learning disabled/language impaired children
Authors: Meline Timothy J. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTCommunicative behaviors used in encoding new information were examined. Eighteen learning disabled/language impaired (LD/LI) children were compared with two matched groups of normally developing children: age-mates and language-mates. Behaviors studied included measures of communicative effectiveness, communicative efficiency, verbal output, and referential strategies. LD/LI children did not differ significantly from age-mates. However, they did significantly outperform language-mates. Deficient lexicon and deficient comparison activity hypotheses are discussed in light of the results.
The effect of multilingualism on phonetic perceptual flexibility
Authors: Werker Janet F. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis research was designed to explore whether maintenance of the ability to discriminate phonetic distinctions requires specific linguistic/perceptual experience, or whether broadened but nonrelevant linguistic experience can result in generalized perceptual flexibility. To explore this question, bilingual and trilingual adult subjects were compared to monolingual English adults on their ability to discriminate phonetic distinctions that are not used in (any of) their native language(s). Results suggest that broadened, nonspecific linguistic experience does not contribute to increased perceptual flexibility.
Developmental loss of speech perception: Exposure to and experience with a first language
Authors: Burnham Denis K. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTYoung infants perceive a variety of speech contrasts, even those that are not relevant in their own language environment. Evidence regarding the loss of perceptual ability with phonologically irrelevant contrasts is reviewed and a theoretical distinction is advanced. It is proposed that the perception of “fragile” contrasts is lost in infancy due to lack ofexposureto particular sounds, while the perception of “robust” contrasts is lost around the onset of formal language training due to lack ofexperiencewith phonologically irrelevant contrasts. This distinction should provide a heuristic framework for future research on the development of speech perception.
Imitation of complex syntactic constructions by elderly adults
Authors: Kemper Susan 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTElderly adults (70 to 89 years) and young adults (30 to 49 years) were asked to imitate complex sentences involving embedded gerunds, wh-clauses, that-clauses, and relative clauses. The young adults were able to imitate accurately or correctly paraphrase the sentences regardless of the length, position, or type of embedded clause. The elderly adults could accurately imitate or paraphrase short constructions. The elderly adults were unable to imitate or paraphrase correctly long constructions, especially those in which the embedded clause was sentence-initial. The pattern of results demonstrates an age-related decline in syntactic processing abilities due, perhaps, to the increased processing demands of the long or sentence-initial constructions.
Competition in learning language-based categories
Authors: Taraban Roman , Roark Bret 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTCompetition is a property of cognitive processing which results from learning that is characterized by the indeterminate encoding of instances and from processing that is characterized by the mutual influence of all activated representations on one another. In the present study, non-French participants learned gender-appropriate adjectives (petit or petite) for a set of 24 French nouns. We found that learning the same set of feminine French nouns could be made more or less difficult when the nouns in the masculine category created more or less competition. One measure from the Competition Model of MacWhinney and Bates (Bates & MacWhinney, 1987, 1989; MacWhinney, 1985, 1987) – cue reliability – predicted these competition effects. We tested an alternative measure based on the encoding of the nouns in memory (termed exemplars) and found that it predicted participants' mean learning performance somewhat more accurately. In the final section of this article, we extend our exemplar-based measure to a connectionist network in order to account for competition and the time course of learning. The network provided a superior fit to the data, with an averageR2= .91.
Pseudoword reading errors of poor, dyslexic, and normally achieving readers on multisyllable pseudowords
Authors: Tal Naomi Frankel , Siegel Linda S. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study examined the pseudoword reading strategies of dyslexic readers (i.e., children whose reading was significantly lower than predicted by their IQ score) and poor readers (i.e., children whose reading scores were consistent with their lower IQ scores). The disabled readers were grouped according to their reading grade level and were compared with reading level matched, normally achieving readers. The reading performance on a test of pseudoword reading (Woodcock Word Attack Subtest) for the three groups (dyslexic, poor, and normal readers) was analyzed according to the type of error committed. The performance of dyslexic and poor readers was virtually indistinguishable at both reading grade levels 2–3 and 4–5. There was very little difference among dyslexic, poor, and normally achieving readers in the types of errors made. Nearly 50010 of all the oral reading errors of all three groups were vowel substitutions, followed by consonant substitution and deletion and insertion errors. Sequential, reversal, and word substitution errors were committed infrequently for all three reader groups. The findings failed to support the existence of a critical phonological processing difference between IQ reading- discrepant and IQ reading-nondiscrepant disabled readers and suggest that disabled readers lag behind normally achieving readers in phonological decoding skills.
Children's comprehension of intonation as a marker for discourse topic collaboration
Authors: Holdgrafer Gary , Campbell Thomas F. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTTwo prerecorded productions of the “What's this?” question were presented to Grade 2, 4, and 6 children and to adults over a series of trials in a referential communication task. One production contained emphatic stress on the word “this” and the other production contained equal stress on both words. For each question presentation the experimenter selected a colored picture of an object from a deck that was the match to one of two picture choices in view of the subjects. The students guessed on successive presentations whether a different picture (new topic collaboration) or the same picture (old topic collaboration) had been selected based on the presence or absence of emphatic stress in the questions. No feedback was given to the students throughout the experimental procedure. Use of intonation as a marker for topic collaboration appeared by Grade 4, which is in support of other similar research.
Knowledge of derivational morphology and spelling ability in fourth, sixth, and eighth graders
Authors: Carlisle Joanne F. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study investigated students' knowledge of derivational morphology and the relationship between this knowledge and their ability to spell derived words. The subjects (fourth, sixth and eighth graders) were given the Wide Range Achievement Test, Spelling subtest, and experimental tests of their ability to generate base and derived forms orally, to spell the same base and derived words, and to apply suffix addition rules. The results indicate strong developmental trends in both the mastery of derivational morphology and the spelling of derived words; however, spelling performances lagged significantly behind the ability to generate the same words. Success generating and spelling derived words depended on the complexity of transformations between base and derived forms. Further, mastery of phonological and orthographic transformations most strongly distinguished the three grades in both spelling and generating derived words. Indications that the older students were using knowledge of morphemic structure in spelling derived words were found in analysis of the spelling of base and derived word pairs and the application of suffix addition rules.
The effects of age of second language learning on the production of English vowels
Authors: Munro Murray J. , Flege James Emil , Mackay Ian R. A. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study examined the English vowel productions of 240 native speakers of Italian who had arrived in Canada at ages ranging from 2 to 23 years and 24 native English speakers from the same community. The productions of 11 vowels were rated for degree of foreign accent by 10 listeners. An increase in perceived accentedness as a function of increasing age of arrival was observed on every vowel. Not one of the vowels was observed to be produced in a consistently native-like manner by the latest-arriving learners, even though they had been living in Canada for an average of 32 years. However, high intelligibility (percent correct identification) scores were obtained for the same set of productions. This was true even for English vowels that have no counterpart in Italian.
Metalinguistic ability and early reading achievement
Authors: Bowey Judith A. , Patel Rinu K. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study explored the conceptual status of metalinguistic ability by determining whether or not metalinguistic ability can account for variation in early reading achievement independently of more general language abilities. First-grade children were given a test battery assessing phonemic awareness, syntactic awareness, receptive vocabulary, syntactic proficiency, word decoding ability, and reading comprehension ability. Strong zero-order correlations were observed among all experimental measures. However, multiple regression analyses revealed that metalinguistic ability did not contribute to the prediction of early reading achievement when general language ability effects were statistically controlled.
Affixes and function words in the written language of deaf children
Authors: Taeschner Traute , Devescovi Antonella , Volterra Virginia 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe goal of this article is to investigate whether the acquisition of some morpho-syntactic aspects in Italian deaf adolescents is simply delayed with respect to hearing children, or whether it follows significantly different developmental patterns. Twenty-five deaf students (age range: 11–15 years) and a group of 125 hearing controls (age range: 6–16 years) performed four tests, administered in written form, relative to different grammatical aspects: plurals, articles, and clitic pronouns. Results showed three different patterns of development depending on the grammatical aspect considered. Deaf children compared to hearing controls showed normal development in the pluralization task, delayed development in the pronoun task, and a qualitatively different pattern in the article task.
Talking with strangers: A study of bilingual children's communicative competence
Authors: Genesee Fred , Boivin Isabelle , Nicoladis Elena 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTAn important component of the communicative competence of proficient bilinguals is the ability to use each of their languages differentially and appropriately according to relevant characteristics of the interlocutors and communicative situations. The research reported here examined the communicative competence of four young children (average age of 2;2, average MLU of 1·56) who were acquiring English and French simultaneously in the home. We observed the ways these children used their languages with monolingual strangers and with their bilingual parents. Specifically, the children's use of English-only, French-only, and mixed (English and French) utterances with the strangers during naturalistic play situations was compared with patterns of use with their parents, also during play sessions. We found that all of the children made some accommodations that could be linked to the monolingualism of the stranger; some of the children were more accommodating than others. The results are discussed in terms of young bilingual children's ability to modify their language on-line in response to the particular language characteristics of their interlocutors.
What makes a narrative memorable?
Authors: Mccabe Allyssa , Peterson Carole 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe relatively unexamined question of what kinds of narratives are memorable as whole units of discourse was addressed by studying memory for 288 children's personal narratives. Each narrative was assigned a structural category in story grammar analysis and Labov's highpoint analysis. Narratives were also rated for the presence or absence of sensational content. An incidental free recall of these narratives was then requested from 116 subjects. As predicted, an analysis of variance of recall frequencies revealed a main effect of sensational content; sensational narratives were recalled more frequently than nonsensational ones. Although there was no main effect of highpoint structure, that variable did interact with sensational content; in the absence of sensational content, highpoint structural sophistication predicted enhanced recall. Contrary to prediction, there were no main effects of highpoint structure or story grammar. The study is interpreted as providing partial validation of highpoint analysis, as well as revealing the independent, dominant contribution of content to memory for others' narratives as whole units.
Efficacy of two different types of speech therapy for aphasic stroke patients
Authors: Prins R. S. , Schoonen R. , Vermeulen J. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe influence of two different types of language therapy was investigated by assigning 32 patients to three groups: 10 patients were treated with a Systematic Therapy program for Auditory Comprehension Disorders (group 1), 11 patients received conventional stimulation therapy (group 2), and the other 11 patients received no treatment at all (group 3). Language recovery in the three groups was examined with a test battery consisting of two parts: Part I consisted of 3 subtests for auditory comprehension, which were also used as practice materials in the treatment program given to the patients of group 1; Part II contained 8 tests for auditory comprehension, reading comprehension, and oral expression, the items of which were not used as practice materials in either of the two treated groups. Although the influence of age, time post onset, and severity of the receptive disorder were controlled by multiple regression analysis, it was found that the differences between the three treatment conditions were far from significant on almost all evaluation tests of Part II, as well as on the evaluation tests of Part I. On the basis of these results it was concluded that neither the Systematic Therapy program for Auditory Comprehension Disorders nor the conventional stimulation therapy had any clear effect on the recovery process of the treated patients in groups 1 and 2. Some possible reasons for the failure to demonstrate significant differences in language gains between the three therapeutic conditions are discussed.
Factors related to cross-language transfer and metaphor interpretation in bilingual children
Authors: Johnson Janice 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe study examines factors underlying cross-language transfer in bilingual children; the main focus is on a measure of metaphor interpretation. Subjects were Spanish-English children ranging in age from 7 to 12 years. Measures were obtained for nonverbal mental capacity, metaphor interpretation, verbal-conceptual repertoire, and linguistic proficiency in English and Spanish. Using a previously validated procedure, subjects' metaphor interpretations were scored for cognitive complexity. In both languages, metaphor score was higher in older than in younger children. Correlational analyses indicated that level of metaphor interpretation was most strongly related to cognitive-developmental variables that are interdependent across languages, that is, nonverbal mental capacity and verbal-conceptual repertoire. Variables that measure specific proficiency in a language were less strongly related to level of metaphor interpretation, and did not exhibit cross-language correlations. This pattern was clearly seen in results of exploratory factor analyses. The role of cognitive versus linguistic factors in metaphor development is discussed, as is the issue of interdependence versus independence across first and second languages.
I pledge a legiance tothe flag: Three studies in word segmentation
Authors: Chaney Carolyn 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThree experimental tasks explored young children's metalinguistic awareness of word boundaries. First, preschool children recited word-by-word pieces which differed in abstractness and familiarity of vocabulary. Second, a teaching task was employed to train and then sample selected items taken from the recited pieces, representing words with cards. The data suggested that several strategies were employed: segment-by-phrase, segment-by-syllable, and segment-by-word. Children were less successful in segmenting the more abstract piece than the concrete one, and they tended to revert to a phrase strategy and/or to change abstract words into more common vocabulary. Error analysis revealed growing awareness of the functorsaandthe. In a third experiment, preschool and kindergarten children segmented phrases using the functorsa, an, my, or and phrases using phonetically similar embedded syllables (e.g., holdmynose; goldminer). Segmentation scores increased with age; even the 4½- to 5-year-olds were highly successful, segmenting with 60% accuracy, and by age 6–6½, they were correctly segmenting 75% of the phrases. Children who had begun to read performed better overall than their same-age peers who had not. Children were more successful withmy, or, and word-medialathan withanand word-initiala; embedded syllables tended to be easier than functors, especially for the younger subjects. In conclusion, the years from age 4½- to 6½ appear to be a period of vigorous development of word segmentation skills. During this period, children use increasingly complex strategies – first phrasal, then syllabic, and finally a full word strategy – and they demonstrate a growing knowledge of function words as well as content words. Functors vary in difficulty and developmental sequence due to differences in stress, amount of ambiguity with phonetically similar embedded syllables, semantic complexity, and salience of reference to the young child.
Elicitation of slips of the tongue from young children: A new method and preliminary observations
Authors: Smith Bruce L. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTAlthough many studies of slips of the tongue have been conducted with adults, very few investigations have considered children's slips of the tongue. One reason for this is the difficulty in being able to obtain children's spontaneous slips. The present study, therefore, involved the development of a new technique for eliciting slips of the tongue from children by having them repeat short “tongue-twister” phrases. Transcriptions of the subjects' productions were made from tape recordings, and errors that they produced were examined. Durations of various segments were also measured acoustically and analyzed.