Interlocutor Differential Effects on Bilingual Childrens Language Output Measures

1
Interlocutor Differential Effects on Bilingual
Childrens Language Output Measures

• Raúl Rojas, Ferenc Bunta,
• Aquiles Iglesias, and Brian Goldstein
• ASHA 2007

2
Language exposure and language development in
(Spanish-English) bilinguals

• Amount of home-based Spanish input predicts
  grammatical performance in Spanish
  (Gutiérrez-Clellen, Kreiter, 2003)
• Increased English exposure predicts increased
  lexical skills in English (Kohnert, 2002)
• Amount of input in Spanish and English of
  bilingual children associated with vocabulary
  size (Patterson Pearson, 2004)
• Mothers English proficiency predicted childrens
  proficiency of English as a second language (Jia,
  Aaronson, Wu, 2002)

3
The differential nature of language input/output

• Past studies have not focused on the implications
  of differential interlocutor effects
• Interlocutor A person that takes part in a
  conversation
• Interlocutor differential effects The unique
  effects of how mother's education and the childs
  language interactions with various interlocutors
  affect language output measures

4
Research Question

• What differential effects do various
  interlocutors and mothers education have on
  language output measures of bilingual
  (Spanish-English) kindergarten-age children?

5
Hypotheses

• Hypothesis 1 (H1) Linguistic interactions with
  parents and siblings, language spoken to peers,
  and mothers education will have a differential
  effect on language output measures of bilingual
  children in Spanish and English
• Hypothesis 2 (H2) Bilingual childrens
  linguistic interactions with siblings and
  language spoken to peers, will have stronger
  differential effects than language interactions
  with parents and mothers education, on language
  output measures in both languages
• Hypothesis 3 (H3) Language spoken to peers will
  have an effect over and above all other
  socio-linguistic influences on language output
  measures in Spanish and English

6
Method

• Participants Native Spanish speaking ELLs
  (n224)
• Girls 58 (n130) Boys 42 (n94)
• Age range 410 - 69 (mean58)
• Geographical areas CA and TX urban centers
  regions along the U.S.-Mexico border
• Mothers education (mean8.5 years)
• Parent surveys language samples
• Participant selection criteria
• Analyzable samples in both languages (n448)
• Less than 2 months formal language training
• Surveys missing key information were not included

7
Protocol Parent Surveys

• 59-item parent survey
• Items of interest for this study
• Linguistic interaction information of the child
  with different interlocutors mother, father,
  siblings, peers
• Mothers education in years education level
• Sample linguistic interaction item
• What language does the mother use at home when
  she speaks to this child?
• Response range Only Spanish / Mostly Spanish /
  English and Spanish equally / Mostly English /
  Only English / N/Amissing

8
Protocol Language Samples

• Narrative retell of Frog Where Are You? (Mayer,
  1969)
• One language sample elicited per session
• One week between 1st 2nd session
• 1st session in Spanish
• 2nd session in English
• Language samples digitally recorded and
  transcribed using Systematic Analysis of Language
  Transcripts (SALT) (Miller Iglesias, 2006)
• Language output data generated via SALT

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Independent Variables (IVs)
MOTHERS EDUCATION
INPUT
OUTPUT
Mothers education in years
Mothers language spoken to Child
Childs language spoken to Mother
Mothers education level
Fathers language spoken to Child
Childs language spoken to Father
Siblings language spoken to Child
Childs language spoken to Siblings
Childs language spoken to Peers
10
Factor Analysis (Varimax Rotation)
Individual IVs Collapsed IVs

• Mothers language spoken to Child
• Fathers language spoken to Child
• Childs language spoken to Mother
• Childs language spoken to Father

Parent Factor
Sibling Factor

• Siblings language spoken to Child
• Childs language spoken to Siblings
• Childs language spoken to Peers

Sibling Peer Factor

• Mothers education in years
• Mothers education level

Mothers Education Factor
11
Dependent Variables (DVs)
Words per Minute (WPM)
Number of Different Words (NDW)
Mean Length of Utterance in Words (MLU-w)
Verbal fluency measure (Riggenbach, 1991)
Lexical diversity measure (Miller, 1987)
Syntactic complexity measure (Paradis et al.,
2003)
12
Results
13
Regression Analyses H1 Test Parent Factor
Sibling Peer Factor Mothers Ed. Factor on
DVs plt.05

• H1 Confirmation All factors
• English All DVs (i.e., MLUw, NDW, WPM) were
  significant
• Spanish NDW was significant

14
Regression Analyses H2 testSibling Peer
Factor (Parent Factor Mothers Ed. Factor
partialed out) on DVs plt.05

• H2 Confirmation Sibling Peer Factor
• English All DVs were significant
• Spanish MLUw NDW were significant

15
Regression Analyses H3 testChild language to
Peers (Parent Factor, Mothers Ed. partialed out
Sibling Factor excluded) on DVs plt.05

• H3 Confirmation Child language to Peers
• English All DVs were significant
• Spanish Not confirmed

16
Post-hoc Analyses

• Hypotheses confirmed for English, but only partly
  confirmed for Spanish
• The effects of each Factor and of the Child
  language to Peers were isolated
• Parent Factor Mothers Ed. Factor Sibling
  Factor Child Language to Peers
• Measure the unique contribution of each IV of
  interest on the DVs
• plt.003 More stringent p value to minimize Type
  I (i.e., false positive) error

17
Post-hoc Analyses (Continued)

• English
• Parent Factor
• Not confirmed
• Mothers Ed. Factor
• MLU-w (p lt .001)
• NDW (p lt .001)
• Sibling Factor
• NDW (p lt .001)
• WPM (p lt .002)
• Child Language to Peers
• NDW (p lt .001)
• WPM (p lt .001)

• Spanish
• Parent Factor
• Not confirmed
• Mothers Ed. Factor
• Not confirmed
• Sibling Factor
• NDW (p lt .001)
• Child Language to Peers
• Not confirmed

18
Discussion

• Bilingual children demonstrated language-specific
  interlocutor differential effects (IDEs) on
  language output measures
• English IDEs
• Mothers Education Factor
• Childs language spoken to Peers
• Sibling Factor
• Spanish IDEs
• Sibling Factor (NDW MLUw partly)
• Parent Factor had limited IDEs
• Parent Factor had IDEs primarily on English, and
  to some degree on Spanish, but only when combined
  with other Factors

19
Discussion (continued)

• English
• Kindergarten-age bilinguals may use more English
  with Siblings and Peers, than with Parents
• Moms with higher education levels may have higher
  English proficiency impacting linguistic
  interactions with their children
• Spanish
• Kindergarten-age bilinguals may use both
  languages with Siblings
• Parent Factor and Kindergarten-age
• Impact of linguistic interactions with Parents on
  language performance of bilinguals diminishes
  (Pease-Alvarez, 2002)
• Linguistic interactions with Siblings and Peers
  become more pronounced (Wong-Fillmore, 1991)

20
Conclusions

• The role of language exposure in bilingual
  language development, from an interlocutor
  perspective that utilizes language input and
  output
• Information on the impact of sibling and peer
  interactions on bilingual childrens language
  skills
• Confirm previous findings on the effects of
  maternal education and parental influence on
  bilingual language development
• Predictive information of IDEs by language for
  Kindergarten-age (Spanish-English) bilinguals
• Whom bilingual children interact with, and in
  what language, can have unique effects on
  bilingual language development

21
Acknowledgements

• This research has been supported in part by
  grants HD39521 "Oracy/Literacy Development of
  Spanish-speaking Children" and R305U010001
  "Biological and Behavioral Variation in the
  Language Development of Spanish-speaking
  Children," both jointly funded by the National
  Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
  NIH, and the US Department of Educations
  Institute of Education Sciences

22
References

• Gutiérrez-Clellen, V.F., Kreiter, J. (2003).
  Understanding child bilingual acquisition using
  parent and teacher reports. Applied
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• Jia, G., Aaronson, D., Yanhong, Wu (2002).
  Long-term language attainment of bilingual
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  group differences. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23,
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• Kohnert,K. (2002). Picture naming in early
  sequential bilinguals A 1-year follow-up.
  Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing
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• Mayer, M. (1969). Frog Where Are You? New York,
  NY Dial Books for Young Readers.
• Miller, J.F. (1987). A grammatical
  characterization of language disorder.
  Proceedings of the First International Symposium
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• Miller, J.F., Iglesias, A. (2006). Systematic
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  Computer software. Madison, WI Language
  Analysis Laboratory, University of
  Wisconsin-Madison.

23
References

• Paradis, J., Crago, M., Genesee, F. Rice, M.
  (2003). Bilingual children with specific language
  impairment How do they compare with their
  monolingual peers? Journal of Speech, Language
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• Pease-Alvarez, L. (2002). Moving beyond linear
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• Riggenbach, H. (1991). Toward an understanding of
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• Wong-Fillmore, L. (1991). When learning a second
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