Barbara Zurer Pearson

Social Factors in Childhood Bilingualism in the United States.

A number of studies have shown that approximately one-quarter of children in potentially bilingual environments do not become bilingual. This article explores several key factors that influence the likelihood that a child who has access to interactions in two languages will learn them both. The five factors discussed are input, language status, access to literacy, family language use, and community support, including schooling. It is argued that the quantity of input has the greatest effect on whether a minority language will be learned, but language status and attitudes about language also play a role. When families are proactive and provide daily activities for children in the minority language, the children respond by learning it. In addition, dual-immersion, “two-way” schooling is shown to benefit childrens level of language proficiency in the minority language without diminishing their progress in the community language.

Bilingual Receptive Vocabulary in Hispanic Preschool Children

Hispanic preschoolers in Miami, who are economically and culturally similar to the generalpopulation, were tested on receptive vocabulary in English and Spanish. English scores, even for children from homes where some English is spoken, were more than one and a haif standard deviations below the mean. The Spanish mean, by contrast was 95, a small, though significant difference from the Spanish norm. Factors other than vocabulary knowledge that might account for the lower scores are exploredL These include a different order of item difficulty, the potentially inappropriate norming sample, and the underestimation of bilingual knowledge inherent in single-language measures.

The comprehension of metaphor by preschool children

Comprehension of metaphor in preschoolers was studied through an elicited repetition task. Subjects were 52 children aged 3.0 to 5.2. Repetition performance on metaphors was compared to repetitions of semantically well-formed literal sentences as well as semantically anomalous sentences, all matched for length, vocabulary and sentence structure. Accuracy on literal and metaphoric stimuli was comparable, and both were significantly better than performance on anomalous sentences. There were no effects for age or sex. It was shown that the metaphors were not semantically anomalous to the children and that they were processed on a par with literal language. The argument is advanced from a review of the literature that imitation implicates understanding of the material imitated. If metaphor is thus shown to emerge early in the childs linguistic repertory, figurative language, it may be argued, occupies a more central position in linguistic theory than it has been accorded.

Predictive Validity of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for Hispanic Bilingual Students.

This study examines the effect of bilingual background on standardized testing among middle-class Hispanic students in South Florida Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores and college GPA after four semesters were compared for 220 Hispanic and 892 non-Hispanic White students at the University of Miami. SAT scores accounted for a similar percentage of the variance in college GPA for the two groups, but mean SATs were significantly lower for the Hispanic students (about 45 points on average, both verbal and math), despite equivalent college grades. A given SAT score predicted a slightly higher GPA for the Hispanic student. In view of this finding, affinrmative action policies that recommend different interpretations of standardized scores with minority groups may represent not a lowering of academic standards but, rather, a fairer prediction for that group.

Removing obstacles for African American English-speaking children through greater understanding of language difference.

Language difference among speakers of African American English (AAE) has often been considered language deficit, based on a lack of understanding about the AAE variety. Following Labov (1972), Wolfram (1969), Green (2002, 2011), and others, we define AAE as a complex rule-governed linguistic system and briefly discuss language structures that it shares with general American English (GAE) and others that are unique to AAE. We suggest ways in which mistaken ideas about the language variety add to childrens difficulties in learning the mainstream dialect and, in effect, deny them the benefits of their educational programs. We propose that a linguistically informed approach that highlights correspondences between AAE and the mainstream dialect and trains students and teachers to understand language varieties at a metalinguistic level creates environments that support the academic achievement of AAE-speaking students. Finally, we present 3 program types that are recommended for helping students achieve the skills they need to be successful in multiple linguistic environments.

Differentiating Speech Sound Disorders from Phonological Dialect Differences: Implications for Assessment and Intervention.

B. Z. Pearson, S. L. Velleman, T. J. Bryant, and T. Charko (2009) demonstrated phonological differences in typically developing children learning African American English as their first dialect vs. General American English only. Extending this research to children with speech sound disorders (SSD) has key implications for intervention. A total of 148 children (4–12 years) with SSD, 72 learning only general American English and 76 learning African American English first, took the Dialect Sensitive Language Test (DSLT; H. Seymour, T. Roeper, & J. G. de Villiers, 2000) phonology subtest. Mismatches to target forms were categorized as phonotactic vs. segmental. The scores of the children with SSD were below Dialect Sensitive Language Test norms; overall dialect differences in mismatch frequency were not identified. However, individual consonants were mastered in different orders by dialect, even among children with SSD. Phonotactic vs. segmental dialect differences were emergent but nonsignificant at age 6 years. Intervention targets should be chosen per dialect-specific segmental orders of acquisition and phonotactic priorities.