Brenda K. Gorman

Phonological Awareness in Spanish: A Tutorial for Speech-Language Pathologists

In the United States, more than 2 million children in Grades pre-K through 6 speak Spanish as their primary language. Approximately 50% of these students receive academic instruction in Spanish. This tutorial provides research-based recommendations for presenting phonological awareness tasks to children who receive literacy instruction in Spanish. The authors also discuss how phonological awareness development may differ between monolingual children learning Spanish and monolingual children learning English, and the implications of these differences for choosing appropriate phonological awareness tasks for Spanish speakers.

Nonword Repetition Performance and Related Factors in Children Representing Four Linguistic Groups

The current study was designed to compare the English nonword repetition accuracy in 7-year-old monolingual English, Korean–English bilingual, Chinese–English bilingual, and Spanish–English bilingual children. The relationships among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and phonotactic probability in each group of children were also examined. The results indicated significant differences among the groups’ accuracy of consonants and vowels by syllable length. Different correlational patterns emerged among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, and phonological awareness. Theoretical and clinical implications for the use of nonword repetition tasks for children from various linguistic backgrounds are discussed.

Language Modeling and Reading Achievement: Variations across Different Types of Language Instruction Programs.

This study investigated the degree to which the quality of teachers’ language modeling contributed to reading achievement for 995 students, both English language learners and native English speakers, across developmental bilingual, dual language, and monolingual English classrooms. Covariates included prior reading achievement, gender, eligibility for free lunch, and ethnicity. A 2-level hierarchical linear modeling analysis revealed that (a) prior achievement, Latino ethnicity, and eligibility for free lunch contributed significantly to the model but gender did not; (b) students gained 3 points for each unit increase in the quality of language modeling across classrooms; and (c) reading achievement for English language learners was not significantly different than that for native English-speaking students. In addition, cross-level interactions revealed that the slope of the quality of language modeling and reading achievement for students in monolingual English classrooms and developmental bilingual classrooms was stronger than that for students in dual language classrooms. We discuss classroom implications of bilingualism and language modeling in improving reading outcomes.

Production of Korean Case Particles in a Korean-English Bilingual Child with Specific Language Impairment: A Preliminary Study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of Korean case particles in a Korean—English bilingual child with specific language impairment (SLI). The childs production of four types of Korean case particles were compared to those of three typically developing children during probe and storytelling tasks. The Korean—English bilingual child with SLI produced the vocative and the nominative for person case particles similar to children matched on age and mean length of utterance (MLU). He produced the nominative for object and accusative case particles similar to the MLU-matched child but exhibited lower performance than that of his age-matched peers. The results suggest that longer duration of Korean case particles in the phrase-final position may provide perceptual salience and not pose particular difficulty for the Korean—English bilingual with SLI. Frequent omission of the accusative by the child with SLI and his MLU-matched peer, however, supports the argument that frequency effect in linguistic input influences morphological development.

Spanish-English speech perception in children and adults: Developmental trends.

This study explored the developmental trends and phonetic category formation in bilingual children and adults. Participants included 30 fluent Spanish–English bilingual children, aged 8–11, and bilingual adults, aged 18–40. All completed gating tasks that incorporated code-mixed Spanish–English stimuli. There were significant differences in performance according to phonotactic construction of the stimuli, with fastest word recognition on words with voiceless initial consonants. Analysis of developmental trends revealed significant differences in childrens performance by grade level and fastest recognition on English voiceless initial consonants than Spanish voiceless initial consonants. Differences in voice onset time between English and Spanish may have contributed to quicker recognition of English voiceless consonants than Spanish voiceless consonants. It is also possible that increased exposure to both spoken and written English may account for faster recognition of English voiceless words than Spanish voiceless words. In conclusion, multiple factors may influence perception of a second language.