The Cross-Linguistic Lexical Task in bilingual children from Luxembourg. Psychometric properties and clinical implications

Scientific Conference (2014, July 17)

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the psychometric properties of the Luxembourgish version of the CLT in a multilingual sample of preschoolers and to identify implications of the ... [more ▼]

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the psychometric properties of the Luxembourgish version of the CLT in a multilingual sample of preschoolers and to identify implications of the instrument for clinical practice. Participants were 40 monolingual and 40 bilingual children with a mean age of 5 years and 10 months. Children were recruited from Year 1 and Year 2 of Luxembourgish kindergartens. Monolingual children spoke only Luxembourgish at home and in school. Bilinguals had lived in Luxembourg for at least 2 years and came from families where one or both parents indicated speaking another language than Luxembourgish at home. Groups did not differ significantly in age, gender, or socioeconomic status. Children completed all 4 subtasks of the CLT-Lu (noun & verb comprehension and production tasks respectively), and a nonword repetition and digit recall task assessing phonological processing and verbal short-term memory. All CLT subtasks reached sufficient internal consistencies with Cronbachs alpha’s ranging between .77 and .91. If the sample was split into monolingual and bilingual groups, reliability remained satisfactory for the production tasks (alpha’s between .70 - .90). Word comprehension could, however, only be reliably assessed in bilinguals (alpha’s of .73 and .79); monolinguals scored at ceiling. The CLT measures correlated significantly with digit recall and nonword repetition (r’s between .42 - .50). On average bilinguals scored three standard deviations below the performance of the monolinguals on all CLT subtasks and difference were larger for nouns than for verbs. The study indicates that the CLT is a promising tool to reliably assess word comprehension in monolingual and word comprehension and production in bilingual preschool children in Luxembourg. However, it is crucial to test bilingual children in all of their languages and to establish specific bilingual norms in order to get a better indication of their verbal abilities. [less ▲]

Executive functions and Specific Language Impairment (SLI) A cross-cultural study with bi- and monolingual children from low income families in Luxembourg, Portugal, and Brazil

Scientific Conference (2014, July 16)

Research questions. Our aim was to (a) seek cross-cultural evidence for executive functioning deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI); (b) explore whether a similar pattern of ... [more ▼]

Research questions. Our aim was to (a) seek cross-cultural evidence for executive functioning deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI); (b) explore whether a similar pattern of deficits emerges in monolingual and bilingual children with SLI from low income families. Methods. We present data on bilingual and monolingual children from Luxembourg, Portugal, and Brazil who all speak Portuguese as their first language and were tested on the same battery of language and executive function measures. The data from 124 eight-year-olds from five different groups was analyzed: (1) 15 Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilingual children from Luxembourg with SLI (Bi-SLI); (2) 33 typically developing Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilingual children from Luxembourg (Bi-TD); (3) 33 typically developing monolinguals from Portugal (Mo-TD/Pt); (4) 18 monolinguals from Brazil with SLI (Mo-SLI); (5) 25 typically developing monolinguals from Brazil (Mo-TD/Br). Groups were matched on chronological age, socioeconomic status, and nonverbal intelligence. Children completed a range of measures tapping vocabulary, grammar, verbal and visuospatial working memory, and cognitive control. Results. Despite significant differences in their language and verbal working memory performance (SLI<TD), groups exhibited comparable performance on visuospatial working memory tasks. On cognitive control the following pattern emerged: Mo-TD/Pt < Bi-TD; Bi-SLI = Mo-TD/Pt; Mo-SLI < Mo-TD/Br. Conclusion. The study provides no evidence of domain-general deficits in working memory in SLI. Visuospatial working memory difficulties might not be specific to SLI but represent one of many risk factors that can compromise language learning. Our data is consistent with the position that a bilingual experience stimulates the development of cognitive control that is involved in dealing with conflicting information. Notably, our results indicate that mechanisms of cognitive control might be deficient in monolingual but not in bilingual children with SLI raising the possibility that bilingualism might represent a protective factor against some of the cognitive limitations in SLI. [less ▲]

Age of Acquisition Norms for Nouns and Verbs in 22 Languages

Poster (2014, July 15)

Word characteristics such as frequency, imageability, concreteness and length are considered good predictors of performance in lexical tasks like picture naming, word comprehension or lexical decision ... [more ▼]

Word characteristics such as frequency, imageability, concreteness and length are considered good predictors of performance in lexical tasks like picture naming, word comprehension or lexical decision-making. There is also evidence that the age of acquisition (AoA) of words can partly explain aspects of word processing behaviour in later childhood and adulthood (Morrison et al., 1992; Brysbaert & Cortese, 2010).In the present study, we collected AoA norms for 158 nouns and 142 verbs in 22 languages: Afrikaans, British English, Catalan, Danish, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Irish, IsiXhosa, Italian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, South African English, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. In a preparatory picture naming procedure, adult native speakers of 34 languages were asked to name 508 object and 504 action pictures. Words shared among the target languages were retained for the final corpus. Our study followed the typical procedure for establishing AoA (see Morrison et al. 1997) and was performed on-line (see www.words-psych.org). 804 adult participants (at least 20 for each language) were asked to specify the age at which they learned the words in their native language. The vast majority of words were rated as acquired by the age of 7 years, demonstrating overlap in early vocabulary across diverse languages. Significant correlations between all language pairs point to a similar developmental sequence for the words under investigation. No previous study has compared AoA judgements on a shared set of words in a wide range of languages. 'The AoA data collected in the 22 languages provides word characteristics that should assist the design of cross-linguistic psycholinguistic experiments and the preparation of materials for use in the assessment and treatment of language disorders in preschool children. The AoA data are currently being used to control for AoA in the construction of cross-linguistic lexical tasks assessing word knowledge in monolingual and bilingual children. [less ▲]

Executive functioning and reading achievement in school: a study of Brazilian children assessed by their teachers as “poor readers”

in Frontiers in Psychology (2014), 5

This study examined executive functioning and reading achievement in 106 6- to 8-year-old Brazilian children from a range of social backgrounds of whom approximately half lived below the poverty line. A ... [more ▼]

This study examined executive functioning and reading achievement in 106 6- to 8-year-old Brazilian children from a range of social backgrounds of whom approximately half lived below the poverty line. A particular focus was to explore the executive function profile of children whose classroom reading performance was judged below standard by their teachers and who were matched to controls on chronological age, sex, school type (private or public), domicile (Salvador/BA or São Paulo/SP) and socioeconomic status. Children completed a battery of 12 executive function tasks that were conceptual tapping cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibition and selective attention. Each executive function domain was assessed by several tasks. Principal component analysis extracted four factors that were labeled “Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility,” “Interference Suppression,” “Selective Attention,” and “Response Inhibition.” Individual differences in executive functioning components made differential contributions to early reading achievement. The Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility factor emerged as the best predictor of reading. Group comparisons on computed factor scores showed that struggling readers displayed limitations in Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility, but not in other executive function components, compared to more skilled readers. These results validate the account that working memory capacity provides a crucial building block for the development of early literacy skills and extends it to a population of early readers of Portuguese from Brazil. The study suggests that deficits in working memory/cognitive flexibility might represent one contributing factor to reading difficulties in early readers. This might have important implications for how educators might intervene with children at risk of academic under achievement. [less ▲]

Working memory screening, school context, and socioeconomic status: An analysis of the effectiveness of the Working Memory Rating Scale in Brazil

in Journal of Attention Disorders (2014), 18(4), 301-311

Objective: The study explores the psychometric properties of the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the Working Memory Rating Scale (WMRS-Br) in a population of 355 young children from diverse socioeconomic ... [more ▼]

Objective: The study explores the psychometric properties of the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the Working Memory Rating Scale (WMRS-Br) in a population of 355 young children from diverse socioeconomic status and schooling backgrounds. Method: Public and private school teachers completed the WMRS-Br and children were assessed on a range of objective cognitive measures of fluid intelligence, working memory, and attention. Results: Reliability and validity of the WMRS-Br were excellent across the public and private school sample. The WMRS-Br manifested substantial links with objective measures of working memory and medium links with selective attention, switching, and interference suppression. Confirmatory factor analyses suggest that a shorter version of the scale provides an adequate fit to the data. Conclusion: The WMRS-Br represents a valid screening tool in a Latin American context that has the potential to improve the early detection of working memory deficits in children growing up in poverty. [less ▲]

D’méisproochegt Gehir

Conference given outside the academic context (2014)

Est-ce vraiment bien, pour nos enfants, d’apprendre à parler plusieurs langues en même temps ? Comment les aider au mieux à progresser ? Notre première invitée, Madame Pascale Engel de Abreu, Professeur à ... [more ▼]

Est-ce vraiment bien, pour nos enfants, d’apprendre à parler plusieurs langues en même temps ? Comment les aider au mieux à progresser ? Notre première invitée, Madame Pascale Engel de Abreu, Professeur à UNI.LU (Université du Luxembourg) et psychologue du développement cognitif, illustrera les influences du multilinguisme sur l’organisation du cerveau ; elle décrira les conditions optimales pour qu’un enfant puisse devenir parfaitement multilingue ; puis abordera des questions plus pratiques liées au cadre familial et à la vie quotidienne de nos enfants. Toujours sur le thème du multilinguisme, Madame Angélique Quintus et Madame Flore Schank, (fonction) nous parleront ensuite de certains projets mis en place ou en phase d’étude, par le Ministère de l’Education Nationale. [less ▲]

D’méisproochegt Gehir

Conference given outside the academic context (2014)

The multilingual brain. Is a multilingual education beneficial for children? What are the optimal conditions under which a child can become perfectly multilingual? The given lecture will focus on the ... [more ▼]

The multilingual brain. Is a multilingual education beneficial for children? What are the optimal conditions under which a child can become perfectly multilingual? The given lecture will focus on the "cognitive advantages" of multilingualism and illustrate the impact that being multilingual has on the cognitive organisation of the brain. Practical questions regarding multilingual education will also be discussed. [less ▲]

Le cerveau multilingue

E-print/Working paper (2014)

«L’avantage cognitif» du multilinguisme, décrit le fait que les enfants multilingues accomplissent mieux des tâches cognitives dans le domaine des «fonctions exécutives» que les enfants qui ne parlent ... [more ▼]

«L’avantage cognitif» du multilinguisme, décrit le fait que les enfants multilingues accomplissent mieux des tâches cognitives dans le domaine des «fonctions exécutives» que les enfants qui ne parlent qu’une seule langue. [less ▲]

Bilingualism enriches the poor: Enhanced cognitive control in low-income minority children

Scientific Conference (2013, September 04)

Living in poverty is often accompanied by conditions that can negatively influence cognitive development. Is it possible that being bilingual might counteract these effects? Although previous research has ... [more ▼]

Living in poverty is often accompanied by conditions that can negatively influence cognitive development. Is it possible that being bilingual might counteract these effects? Although previous research has shown that being bilingual enhances executive functioning in middle-class children, less is known about how it affects lower income populations. This study was the first to explore whether the cognitive advantage associated with bilingualism in executive functioning extends to young immigrant children challenged by poverty and, if it does, which specific processes are most affected. A total of 80 second graders from low-income families participated in the study. Half of the children were first or second generation immigrants to Luxembourg, originally from Northern Portugal, who spoke both Luxembourgish and Portuguese on a daily basis. The other matched half of children lived in Northern Portugal and spoke only Portuguese. Children completed measures of vocabulary and visuospatial tests of working memory, abstract reasoning, selective attention, and interference suppression. Two broad cognitive factors of executive functioning — representation (abstract reasoning and working memory) and control (selective attention and interference suppression) — emerged from principal component analysis. Although the bilingual children knew fewer words than their monolingual peers, and did not show an advantage in representation, the bilinguals performed significantly better than did the monolinguals in cognitive control. These results demonstrate, first, that the bilingual advantage is neither confounded with nor limited by socioeconomic and cultural factors and, second, that separable aspects of executive functioning are differentially affected by bilingualism. The bilingual advantage lies in control but not in visuospatial representational processes. This is the first study to show that, although they may face linguistic challenges, minority bilingual children from low-income families demonstrate important strengths in other cognitive domains. The study therefore informs efforts to reduce the achievement gap between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds. [less ▲]

D‘Exekutivfunktiounen a spezifesch Sproochentwécklungsstéierungen

Conference given outside the academic context (2013)