Year: 2023
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: We assessed the impact of non-native language input on Spanish–English bilingual preschool-age children’s language skills. Most participants (96%) had language skills within the average range. We examined whether the number of native English speakers, the number of non-native English speakers, the strength of foreign accent in English, intelligibility (percent intelligible utterances), syntax/morphology (mean length of utterance in morphemes), and grammatical errors were related to children’s overall language skills. The results revealed that the number of native English speakers and intelligibility in English positively predicted children’s language skills while the number of non-native English speakers and the strength of foreign accent in English negatively predicted children’s language skills. None of the grammatical measures predicted children’s language skills. These findings indicate that non-native input can be associated with less robust language skills, but non-native input is not in fact detrimental to language development for neurotypical preschool-age children given their within-average language scores.
Source: Languages
Authors: Milijana Buac, Margarita Kaushanskaya
Institutions: Northern Illinois University, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,557
OpenAlex ID: W4388942064