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   Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural effects on verbal working memory and vocabulary: Testing minority-language children with an immigrant backgroundEngel de Abreu, Pascale  ; ; et alin Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing research (2013), 56(2), 630-642 PURPOSE: This study explored the impact of test language and cultural status on vocabulary and working memory performance in multilingual language minority children. METHOD: Twenty 7-year-old Portuguese ... [more ▼] PURPOSE: This study explored the impact of test language and cultural status on vocabulary and working memory performance in multilingual language minority children. METHOD: Twenty 7-year-old Portuguese-speaking immigrant children living in Luxembourg completed several assessments of first- and second-language vocabulary (comprehension and production), executive-loaded working memory (counting recall and backward digit recall), and verbal short-term memory (digit recall and nonword repetition). Cross-linguistic task performance was compared within individuals. The language minority children were also compared with multilingual language majority children from Luxembourg and Portuguese-speaking monolinguals from Brazil without an immigrant background matched on age, sex, socioeconomic status, and nonverbal reasoning. RESULTS: Results showed that (a) verbal working memory measures involving numerical memoranda were relatively independent of test language and cultural status; (b) language status had an impact on the repetition of high- but not on low-wordlike L2 nonwords; (c) large cross-linguistic and cross-cultural effects emerged for productive vocabulary; (d) cross-cultural effects were less pronounced for vocabulary comprehension with no differences between groups if only L1-words relevant to the home context were considered. CONCLUSION: The study indicates that linguistic and cognitive assessments for language minority children require careful choice among measures to ensure valid results. Implications for testing culturally and linguistically diverse children are discussed. [less ▲] Detailed reference viewed: 371 (22 UL)Are working memory measures free of socio-economic influence?Engel de Abreu, Pascale ; ; in Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing research (2008), 51(6), 1580-1587 PURPOSE: This study evaluated the impact of socioeconomic factors on children's performance on tests of working memory and vocabulary. METHOD: Twenty Brazilian children, aged 6 and 7 years, from low ... [more ▼] PURPOSE: This study evaluated the impact of socioeconomic factors on children's performance on tests of working memory and vocabulary. METHOD: Twenty Brazilian children, aged 6 and 7 years, from low-income families, completed tests of working memory (verbal short-term memory and verbal complex span) and vocabulary (expressive and receptive). A further group of Brazilian children from families of higher socioeconomic status matched for age, gender, and nonverbal ability also participated in the study. RESULTS: Children from the low socioeconomic group obtained significantly lower scores on measures of expressive and receptive vocabulary than their higher income peers but no significant group differences were found on the working memory measures. CONCLUSION: Measures of working memory provide assessments of cognitive abilities that appear to be impervious to substantial differences in socioeconomic background. As these measures are highly sensitive to language ability and learning in general, they appear to provide useful methods for diagnosing specific learning difficulties that are independent of environmental opportunity [less ▲] Detailed reference viewed: 264 (16 UL) |
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