Author(s): López Pérez M; Moore C; Sander-Montant A; Byers-Heinlein K;

Assessing early vocabulary development commonly involves parent report methods and behavioral tasks like looking-while-listening. While both yield reliable aggregate scores, findings are mixed regarding their reliability in measuring infants' knowledge of individual words. Using archival data from 126 monolingual and bilingual 14-31-month-olds, we fur ...

Article GUID: 39639457

Author(s): Ruan Y; Byers-Heinlein K; Orena AJ; Polka L;

Language mixing is a common feature of many bilingually-raised children's input. Yet how it is related to their language development remains an open question. The current study investigated mixed-language input indexed by observed (30-second segment) counts and proportions in day-long recordings as well as parent-reported scores, in relation to infant ...

Article GUID: 38187471

Author(s): Sander-Montant A; López Pérez M; Byers-Heinlein K;

Children have an early ability to learn and comprehend words, a skill that develops as they age. A critical question remains regarding what drives this development. Maturation-based theories emphasise cognitive maturity as a driver of comprehension, while accumulator theories emphasise children's accumulation of language experience over time. In this ...

Article GUID: 37402336

Author(s): Abashidze D; Schmidt A; Trofimovich P; Mercier J;

Previous research on the processing of language embedded in a rich visual context has revealed the strong effect that a recently viewed action event has on language comprehension. It has been shown that listeners are more likely to view the target object of a recently performed event than look at the target object of a plausible future event during senten ...

Article GUID: 37179896

Author(s): Grant AM; Kousaie S; Coulter K; Gilbert AC; Baum SR; Gracco V; Titone D; Klein D; Phillips NA;

Research on bilingualism has grown exponentially in recent years. However, the comprehension of speech in noise, given the ubiquity of both bilingualism and noisy environments, has seen only limited focus. Electroencephalogram (EEG) studies in monolinguals show an increase in alpha power when lis ...

Article GUID: 35548507

Author(s): Tsui RK; Gonzalez-Barrero AM; Schott E; Byers-Heinlein K;

The acquisition of translation equivalents is often considered a special component of bilingual children's vocabulary development, as bilinguals have to learn words that share the same meaning across their two languages. This study examined three contrasting accounts for bilingual children's acquisition of translation equivalents relative to singl ...

Article GUID: 35430556

Author(s): Byers-Heinlein K; Jardak A; Fourakis E; Lew-Williams C;

Language mixing is common in bilingual children's learning environments. Here, we investigated effects of language mixing on children's learning of new words. We tested two groups of 3-year-old bilinguals: French-English (Experiment 1) and Spanish-English (Experiment 2). Children were taught two novel words, one in single-language sentences ("Look ...

Article GUID: 35399292

Author(s): Fibla L; Kosie JE; Kircher R; Lew-Williams C; Byers-Heinlein K;

Many infants and children around the world grow up exposed to two or more languages. Their success in learning each of their languages is a direct consequence of the quantity and quality of their everyday language experience, including at home, in daycare and preschools, and in the broader community context. Here, we discuss how research on early language ...

Article GUID: 35224184

Author(s): Kousaie S; Chen JK; Baum SR; Phillips NA; Titone D; Klein D;

A longstanding question in cognitive neuroscience and in the bilingualism literature is how early language experience influences brain development and cognitive outcomes, and whether these effects are global or specific to language-related processes. The current investigation examined the effect of the timing of language learning on the performance and ne ...

Article GUID: 34728242

Author(s): Gilbert AC; Lee JG; Coulter K; Wolpert MA; Kousaie S; Gracco VL; Klein D; Titone D; Phillips NA; Baum SR;

Previous studies of word segmentation in a second language have yielded equivocal results. This is not surprising given the differences in the bilingual experience and proficiency of the participants and the varied experimental designs that have been used. The present study tried to account for a ...

Article GUID: 34603133

Author(s): Schott E; Mastroberardino M; Fourakis E; Lew-Williams C; Byers-Heinlein K;

The ability to differentiate between two languages sets the stage for bilingual learning. Infants can discriminate languages when hearing long passages, but language switches often occur on short time scales with few cues to language identity. As bilingual infants begin learning sequences of sounds and words, how do they detect the dynamics of two languag ...

Article GUID: 34482624