2018 Sat Poster 6421

Saturday, November 3, 2018 | Poster Session II, Metcalf Small | 3:15pm

Predictors of language control in bilingual children with low and typical language
M. Gross, M. Kaushanskaya

Bilingual children must learn to control their language choice to accommodate different conversation partners. However, it remains unclear what skills support language control. Studies of overall language ability comparing language switching in children with and without impairment have yielded mixed results.1-2 Adult psycholinguistic studies3-4 have linked language control with cognitive control, but this relationship has only been examined at the single-word level in children.5 The current study aimed to examine both linguistic and cognitive predictors of language control at the discourse level in bilingual children with low and typical language.

The current study included 67 Spanish-English bilingual children, ages 4-6 (28 boys; Mage=5.31, SD=0.91). All children acquired Spanish within their first year (M=0.3 months, SD=1.61), while initial English exposure varied (M=11.42 months, SD=15.06). On average, current language exposure was relatively balanced (M=54% Spanish input/output, SD=16). Socioeconomic status was indexed by level of maternal education on a 1-6 scale (M=3.18 [some college]; SD=1.77; range=1[less than high school]– 6[doctoral degree]). All children had nonverbal intelligence within normal limits (Leiter-3 M=104.12, SD=7.25; range=87-123). Participants varied in overall language ability, as measured by the Language Index from the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment6 (M=102.16, SD=12.77, range=71-126), which incorporates skills across languages.

Language control was assessed at the discourse level through a scripted confederate dialogue paradigm7 in which children described pictures with a video partner in three contexts: 1) English- speaking partner; 2) Spanish-speaking partner; 3) turns alternating pseudo-randomly between a Spanish- speaking partner and an English-speaking partner. All partners presented themselves as monolinguals.

Children’s responses were coded for cross-language intrusions (at least one word not in the partner’s language). To assess non-linguistic task-shifting, the children completed a version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS).8 Shifting costs were obtained by subtracting accuracy in the post-switch phase (shape game) from accuracy in the pre-switch phase (color game).

A mixed-effects logistic regression model, controlling for age and socioeconomic status, revealed a significant main effect of overall language ability (χ2(1)=11.10, p<.001, B= -0.88, SE=0.26), where children with low language were more likely to produce cross-language intrusions. A main effect of context (χ2(1)=6.70, p=.01, B= -0.29, SE=0.10) reflected more cross-language intrusions in the mixed-language context. An interaction between this context effect and task-shifting (χ2(1)=4.94, p=.03, B= -0.18, SE=0.08) indicated that children with poorer task-shifting exhibited a larger context cost. This interaction was further moderated by language ability (χ2(1)=4.53, p=.03, B= -0.17, SE=0.08), where task-shifting played a smaller role in moderating the context effect in children with lower language (Figure 1).

These findings suggest that overall language ability robustly constraints the ability of young bilingual children to exercise language control during discourse, both with a single monolingual speaker and with two speakers of different languages. The contributions of cognitive control are more nuanced, appearing specifically with regard to adapting to a mixed-language context and playing a larger role in children with better language. This pattern would suggest a threshold effect such that a certain level of underlying language ability may be necessary before cognitive control exerts an influence on language control.

References

  1. Gutierrez-Clellen, V. F., Simon-Cereijido, G., & Leone, A. E. (2009). Code-switching in bilingual children with specific language impairment. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(1), 91-109.
  2. Iluz-Cohen, P., & Walters, J. (2012). Telling stories in two languages: Narratives of bilingual preschool children with typical and impaired language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(Special Issue 01), 58-74.
  3. Festman, J., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., & Munte, T. F. (2010). Individual differences in control of language interference in late bilinguals are mainly related to general executive abilities. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 6(5). doi:10.1186/1744-9081-6-5
  4. Klecha, A. (2013). Language and task switching in Polish-English bilinguals. Psychology of Language and Communication, 17(1), 17-36.
  5. Gross, M., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2018). Contributions of nonlinguistic task-shifting skills to language control in bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition, 21(1), 181-194.
  6. Pena, E., Gutierrez-Clellen, V. F., Iglesias, A., Goldstein, B. A., & Bedore, L. M. (2014). Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA). San Rafael, CA: AR-Clinical
  7. Kootstra, G. J., van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T. (2010). Syntactic alignment and shared word order in code-switched sentence production: Evidence from bilingual monologue and dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language, 63(2), 210-231.
  8. Zelazo, P. D. (2006). The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS): A method of assessing executive function in children. Nature Protocols, 1(1), 297-301.