Paul P.M. Leseman

The home language environment of monolingual and bilingual children and their language proficiency

This study investigated the relationships between home language learning activities and vocabulary in a sample of monolingual native Dutch (n = 58) and bilingual immigrant Moroccan–Dutch (n = 46) and Turkish–Dutch (n = 55) 3-year-olds, speaking Tarifit-Berber, a nonscripted language, and Turkish as their first language (L1), respectively. Despite equal domain general cognitive abilities, Dutch children scored higher than the bilingual children on a L1 vocabulary test, and Moroccan–Dutch children had higher second language (L2) vocabulary skills compared to Turkish–Dutch children. Multigroup analyses revealed strong impact on both L1 and L2 skills of language specific input in literate and oral activities. Finally, indications were found of positive cross-language transfer from L1 to L2 as well as competition between L1 and L2 input.

The added value of eye-tracking in diagnosing dyscalculia: a case study

The present study compared eye movements and performance of a 9-year-old girl with Developmental Dyscalculia (DD) on a series of number line tasks to those of a group of typically developing (TD) children (n = 10), in order to answer the question whether eye-tracking data from number line estimation tasks can be a useful tool to discriminate between TD children and children with a number processing deficit. Quantitative results indicated that the child with dyscalculia performed worse on all symbolic number line tasks compared to the control group, indicated by a low linear fit (R2) and a low accuracy measured by mean percent absolute error. In contrast to the control group, her magnitude representations seemed to be better represented by a logarithmic than a linear fit. Furthermore, qualitative analyses on the data of the child with dyscalculia revealed more unidentifiable fixation patterns in the processing of multi-digit numbers and more dysfunctional estimation strategy use in one third of the estimation trials as opposed to ~10% in the control group. In line with her dyscalculia diagnosis, these results confirm the difficulties with spatially representing and manipulating numerosities on a number line, resulting in inflexible and inadequate estimation or processing strategies. It can be concluded from this case study that eye-tracking data can be used to discern different number processing and estimation strategies in TD children and children with a number processing deficit. Hence, eye-tracking data in combination with number line estimation tasks might be a valuable and promising addition to current diagnostic measures.

The Development of Executive Functions and Early Mathematics: A Dynamic Relationship.

BACKGROUND The relationship between executive functions and mathematical skills has been studied extensively, but results are inconclusive, and how this relationship evolves longitudinally is largely unknown. AIM The aim was to investigate the factor structure of executive functions in inhibition, shifting, and updating; the longitudinal development of executive functions and mathematics; and the relation between them. SAMPLE A total of 211 children in grade 2 (7-8 years old) from 10 schools in the Netherlands. METHOD Children were followed in grade 1 and 2 of primary education. Executive functions and mathematics were measured four times. The test battery contained multiple tasks for each executive function: Animal stroop, local global, and Simon task for inhibition; Animal Shifting, Trail Making Test in Colours, and Sorting Task for shifting; and Digit Span Backwards, Odd One Out, and Keep Track for updating. The factor structure of executive functions was assessed and relations with mathematics were investigated using growth modelling. RESULTS Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that inhibition and shifting could not be distinguished from each other. Updating was a separate factor, and its development was strongly related to mathematical development while inhibition and shifting did not predict mathematics in the presence of the updating factor. CONCLUSIONS The strong relationship between updating and mathematics suggest that updating skills play a key role in the maths learning process. This makes updating a promising target for future intervention studies.

The benefits of being bilingual: Working memory in bilingual Turkish–Dutch children

Whether bilingual children outperform monolingual children on visuospatial and verbal working memory tests was investigated. In addition, relations among bilingual proficiency, language use at home, and working memory were explored. The bilingual Turkish-Dutch children (n=68) in this study were raised in families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) and had smaller Dutch vocabularies than Dutch monolingual controls (n=52). Having these characteristics, they are part of an under-researched bilingual population. It was found that the bilingual Turkish-Dutch children showed cognitive gains in visuospatial and verbal working memory tests when SES and vocabulary were controlled, in particular on tests that require processing and not merely storage. These findings converge with recent studies that have revealed bilingual cognitive advantages beyond inhibition, and they support the hypothesis that experience with dual language management influences the central executive control system that regulates processing across a wide range of task demands. Furthermore, the results show that bilingual cognitive advantages are found in socioeconomically disadvantaged bilingual populations and suggest that benefits to executive control are moderated by bilingual proficiency.

Phonotactic probability effect in nonword recall and its relationship with vocabulary in monolingual and bilingual preschoolers.

The current study examined to what extent information in long-term memory concerning the distribution of phoneme clusters in a language, so-called long-term phonotactic knowledge, increased the capacity of verbal short-term memory in young language learners and, through increased verbal short-term memory capacity, supported these childrens first and second language vocabulary acquisition. Participants were 67 monolingual Dutch and 60 bilingual Turkish-Dutch 4-year-olds. The superior recall of nonwords with high phonotactic probability compared with nonwords with low phonotactic probability indicated that phonotactic knowledge was supportive for verbal short-term recall in both languages. The extent of this support depended on prior experiences with the language: The Turkish-Dutch children showed a greater phonotactic probability effect in their native language Turkish compared with their Dutch peers, and the monolingual Dutch children outperformed the bilingual Turkish-Dutch children in their native language Dutch. Regression analyses showed that phonotactic knowledge, indicated by the difference in recall of nonwords with high versus low phonotactic probability, was an important predictor of vocabulary in both languages.

The relevance of delivery mode and other programme characteristics for the effectiveness of early childhood intervention

Although it is generally believed that early intervention programmes are an effective means to stimulate children’s cognitive development, many questions remain concerning programme design and delivery. This article reviews 19 studies into the effectiveness of early intervention programmes published from 1985 onward. The database comprised 85 different outcomes or effect sizes (71 in the cognitive domain, 14 in the socioemotional domain). The overall effect size estimate was d 1/40.32 (SE 1/4 0.05) in the cognitive domain, and d 1/4 0.05 (SE 1/4 0.02) in the socioemotional domain. Effect sizes were found to depend on delivery mode. Centre-based interventions and interventions following the combined home- and centre-based delivery mode produced greater effect sizes than did home-based programmes in the cognitive domain, but not in the socioemotional domain. The programme inclusion of coaching of parenting skills was also positively related to outcomes in the cognitive domain. Several other programme characteristics, including age of onset, programme length and intensity, continuation after kindergarten, and the inclusion of social or economic support, appeared not to be uniquely related to outcomes.

Effects of quantity and quality of home proximal processes on Dutch, Surinamese–Dutch and Turkish–Dutch pre‐schoolers’ cognitive development

This study examines the effects of mother–child literacy and problem solving interactions on 3–4-year-old childrens cognitive development in a sample of Dutch middle-class, Dutch lower-class, Surinamese and Turkish immigrant families (n=130). Following the bioecological model of Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, mother–child book reading and problem solving interactions are viewed as proximal processes actualizing genetic cognitive potential. Interactions are studied from a quantitative perspective, based on questionnaire data, concerning frequency of exposure to these interactions, and a qualitative perspective, based on observational data, concerning affective quality and cognitive content. The study was designed as a 1 year longitudinal study. It was found that effects of mother–child interactions on cognitive development differed across the groups, controlling for earlier cognitive competence and familys SES. The findings are interpreted within the frame of the bioecological model and the behavioral genetic research paradigm. Copyright

The Structure of Executive Functions in Children: A Closer Examination of Inhibition, Shifting, and Updating.

An increasing number of studies has investigated the latent factor structure of executive functions. Some studies found a three-factor structure of inhibition, shifting, and updating, but others could not replicate this finding. We assumed that the task choices and scoring methods might be responsible for these contradictory findings. Therefore, we selected tasks in which input modality was varied, controlled for baseline speed, and used both speed and accuracy scores, in order to investigate whether a three factor model with inhibition, shifting, and updating could still be replicated. In a group of 211 children, who were tested at the beginning of grade 1, at approximately 6 years of age, and again after 18 months, the best fitting model was not the three-factor model, but instead consisted of an updating factor and a combined inhibition and shifting factor, besides two baseline speed factors (verbal and motor). We argue that these results might indicate that the structural organization of executive functions might be different in children than in adults, but that there might also be an alternative explanation: the distinction in executive functions might not accurately represent cognitive structures but instead be a methodological artefact.

Efficacy of an intensive home-based educational intervention programme for 4- to 6-year-old ethnic minority children in the Netherlands

This paper reports the results of an intensive home-based educational intervention programme for 4- to 6-year-old children at risk of educational failure. The programme, Opstap Opnieuw (“Step-up Anew”), was developed in the Netherlands as an alternative to the well-known HIPPY-programme, of which a Dutch version was carried out in the early 1990s for ethnic minority groups, without apparent success. Building on the basic intervention strategy of HIPPY (i.e., involving mothers and paraprofessional aides), a new curriculum was developed based on recent theoretical insights in cognitive and language development, and emergent literacy and numeracy. The programme was carried out with Turkish and Moroccan immigrant families. For the Turkish group, the results were partly positive: There were modest effects of the programme on cognitive development and emergent numeracy, small effects on Turkish language development, but no effects on Dutch language development. In contrast, for the Moroccan group the effects were disappointing. The results are evaluated with respect to recent insights into effective strategies and essential ingredients of early educational intervention programmes.

Playing and working in kindergarten: cognitive co-construction in two educational situations

Abstract The sociocultural model of learning and development is proposed as a comprehensive framework to study and evaluate practice in early childhood education (ECE). In order to explore the sociocultural concept of cognitive coconstruction, two characteristic educational situations in Dutch kindergartens were compared, namely, free play and work lessons, the first as an instantiation of a child-run and the second as an instantiation of a teacher-run model of ECE. Measures concerned the active participation, intersubjective cooperation, and cognitive distancing of four- to five-year-old children. The study involved 40 target children (mean age 53 months) in seven kindergarten classrooms. Both child-related factors (personality characteristics, cognitive ability, SES of the family) and situation-related factors (peer and teacher behavior, situation characteristics) were found to influence children’s cognitive coconstruction processes. Within the constraints of the Dutch kindergarten curriculum, free play was found to be superior from the sociocultural point of view.