- Faculty of Psychology
University of Warsaw
Stawki 5/7
00-183 Warsaw
Poland
Ewa Haman
University of Warsaw, Faculty of Psychology, Faculty Member
- Psycholinguistics, Language Acquisition, Developmental Psycholinguistics, Word-Formation, Bilingual Development, Word Learning, and 19 moreObrazkowy Test Słownikowy, Dzieci Na Emigracji, Multi- & Bilingualism & Biliteracy, Polish, Warsaw Uprising, Dwujęzyczność, Language Acquisition and Development, Bilingualism, Vocabulary Acquisition, Infant Cognition, Bilingual Language Acquisition, Language Development, Cognitive development, Child Language Development, Speech-Language Pathology/ Communication Disorders, First Language Acquisition, Specific Language Impairment, Lexicon, and Endangered Languagesedit
- I am interested in child lexical development in monolingual and bilingual contexts. I am the author of the first norm... moreI am interested in child lexical development in monolingual and bilingual contexts. I am the author of the first normed Polish picture vocabulary test for preschool children ('Obrazkowy Test Słownikowy - Rozumienie'; 2012, Gdańsk: PTPiP; co-authors: Krzysztof Fronczyk, Magdalena Łuniewska). Currently I am working on the design of cross-linguistic lexical tasks (CLT) for bilingual children. Tasks are developed in parallel for 34 languages within COST Action IS0804 (Bi-SLI), where I am co-leader of Working Group 3 (Lexical and Phonological Processing; co-leader: Shula Chiat). I am also PI in research project funded by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education on "Cognitive and linguistic development of Polish bilingual children at the school entrance age" (co-PI: Zofia Wodniecka). My favourite research topic is word-formation & lexical innovations in children (see some of my publications).
projects:
http://bi-sli.org/
http://psychologia.pl/bi-sli-pl/
http://www.psychologia.pl/psycholingwistyka/ots.html
conferences:
Bi-SLI final conference: http://bi-sli.org/files/BISLI/index.html
SLI: http://sli2012.ibe.edu.pl/index.php/enedit
Łuniewska, M., Hansen, P., Haman, E. (2016). Is there a road to universal assessment of lexical knowledge in multilingual children? Cross-cultural aspects of Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks. In H.O. Enger, M. I. Norvik Knoph, K. E.... more
Łuniewska, M., Hansen, P., Haman, E. (2016). Is there a road to universal assessment of lexical knowledge in multilingual children? Cross-cultural aspects of Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks. In H.O. Enger, M. I. Norvik Knoph, K. E. Kristoffersen and M. Lind (eds.), Helt fabelaktig. Festskrift til Hanne Gram Simonsen på 70-årsdagen (pp. 147-165). Oslo: Novus forlag.
Research Interests:
This chapter addresses the need for comparable measures of lexical knowledge in both languages of a bilingual child. Typically, tools designed to identify SLI do not take into account if a child is bilingual and how this might affect raw... more
This chapter addresses the need for comparable measures of lexical knowledge in both languages of a bilingual child. Typically, tools designed to identify SLI do not take into account if a child is bilingual and how this might affect raw test scores, often leading to misdiagnosis. Both vocabulary size and processing speed can be confounding variables when diagnosticians attempt to disentangle bilingualism from SLI at the lexical level. Lexical abilities can also be used as a baseline assessment of bilingual dominance/proficiency. Hence the need for such tools as we describe here.
Delayed and impaired lexical abilities are among the earliest indicators of SLI (Leonard, 1998). Children with SLI show a delay in lexical development both in terms of the overall number of words and in reaching lexical milestones (i.e. first 50, 100, 200 words, Leonard & Deevy, 2004). They also display relatively weak semantic categories (McGregor et al., 2002). Bilingual children often have smaller lexicons in both of their languages (Bialystok et al., 2010) when compared to monolinguals. However, the number of words in the two languages of a bilingual child added together may not be different from those measured by monolingual norms (Marchman et al., 2009). The processing load in lexical tasks as measured by reaction time is claimed to be higher in bilinguals than in monolinguals (Bialystok et al., 2008, Chen, 1990; Dijkstra, 2003; Kohnert & Bates, 2002). At the same time, children with SLI experience reduced processing capabilities in comparison with typically developing children (Lahey et al., 2001; Lahey & Edwards, 1996; Montgomery, 2002).
Lexical abilities are potentially an early identification measure of bilingual SLI (Gatt et al., 2008), although they should not be used as the only diagnostic variable for this purpose (Gray et al., 1999; Spaulding et al., 2013). The assessment of processing speed and accuracy in lexical tasks may enhance the identification process (Pérez et al., 2013).
The Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLTs) designed within COST Action IS0804 were conceived to provide a fully comparable assessment for vocabulary and lexical processing in 34 different languages. We present the innovative method of the CLTs´ construction: a multilingual parallel task construction procedure which enables an objective test of vocabulary and processing skills in any pair of languages included in the process.
The CLTs target comprehension and production of nouns and verbs. The response accuracy measured in the CLTs indicates the level of receptive and expressive vocabulary size. Measuring reaction time (i.e. comprehension and naming speed) provides insight into the processing demands of passive and active knowledge across the two word classes. Picture choice and picture naming were chosen as being tasks least involving other types of linguistic or conceptual skills.
Currently, the CLTs have been prepared for 21 of the 34 languages and are available for use by researchers. Their use in diagnostics will be warranted as soon as norming studies addressing specific populations of mono- and bilingual children have been completed.
Delayed and impaired lexical abilities are among the earliest indicators of SLI (Leonard, 1998). Children with SLI show a delay in lexical development both in terms of the overall number of words and in reaching lexical milestones (i.e. first 50, 100, 200 words, Leonard & Deevy, 2004). They also display relatively weak semantic categories (McGregor et al., 2002). Bilingual children often have smaller lexicons in both of their languages (Bialystok et al., 2010) when compared to monolinguals. However, the number of words in the two languages of a bilingual child added together may not be different from those measured by monolingual norms (Marchman et al., 2009). The processing load in lexical tasks as measured by reaction time is claimed to be higher in bilinguals than in monolinguals (Bialystok et al., 2008, Chen, 1990; Dijkstra, 2003; Kohnert & Bates, 2002). At the same time, children with SLI experience reduced processing capabilities in comparison with typically developing children (Lahey et al., 2001; Lahey & Edwards, 1996; Montgomery, 2002).
Lexical abilities are potentially an early identification measure of bilingual SLI (Gatt et al., 2008), although they should not be used as the only diagnostic variable for this purpose (Gray et al., 1999; Spaulding et al., 2013). The assessment of processing speed and accuracy in lexical tasks may enhance the identification process (Pérez et al., 2013).
The Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLTs) designed within COST Action IS0804 were conceived to provide a fully comparable assessment for vocabulary and lexical processing in 34 different languages. We present the innovative method of the CLTs´ construction: a multilingual parallel task construction procedure which enables an objective test of vocabulary and processing skills in any pair of languages included in the process.
The CLTs target comprehension and production of nouns and verbs. The response accuracy measured in the CLTs indicates the level of receptive and expressive vocabulary size. Measuring reaction time (i.e. comprehension and naming speed) provides insight into the processing demands of passive and active knowledge across the two word classes. Picture choice and picture naming were chosen as being tasks least involving other types of linguistic or conceptual skills.
Currently, the CLTs have been prepared for 21 of the 34 languages and are available for use by researchers. Their use in diagnostics will be warranted as soon as norming studies addressing specific populations of mono- and bilingual children have been completed.
Research Interests:
Limited expressive vocabulary skills in young children are considered to be the first warning signs of a potential Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (Ellis & Thal, 2008). In bilingual language learning environments, the expressive... more
Limited expressive vocabulary skills in young children are considered to be the first warning signs of a potential Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (Ellis & Thal, 2008). In bilingual language learning environments, the expressive vocabulary size in each of the child’s developing languages is usually smaller compared to the number of words produced by monolingual peers (e.g. De Houwer, 2009). Nonetheless, evidence shows children’s total productive lexicon size across both languages to be comparable to monolingual peers’ vocabularies (e.g. Pearson et al., 1993; Pearson & Fernández, 1994). Since there is limited knowledge as to which level of bilingual vocabulary size should be considered as a risk factor for SLI, the effects of bilingualism and language-learning difficulties on early lexical production are often confounded. The compilation of profiles for early vocabulary production in children exposed to more than one language, and their comparison across language pairs, should enable more accurate identification of vocabulary delays that signal a risk for SLI in bilingual populations. These considerations prompted the design of a methodology for assessing early expressive vocabulary in children exposed to more than one language, which is described in the present chapter. The implementation of this methodological framework is then outlined by presenting the design of a study that measured the productive lexicons of children aged 24-36 months who were exposed to different language pairs, namely Maltese and English, Irish and English, Polish and English, French and Portuguese, Turkish and German as well as English and Hebrew. These studies were designed and coordinated in COST Action IS0804 Working Group 3 (WG3) and will be described in detail in a series of subsequent publications. Expressive vocabulary size was measured through parental report, by employing the vocabulary checklist of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences (CDI: WS) (Fenson et al., 1993, 2007) and its adaptations to the participants’ languages. Here we describe the novelty of the study’s methodological design, which lies in its attempt to harmonize the use of vocabulary checklist adaptations, together with parental questionnaires addressing language exposure and developmental history, across participant groups characterized by different language exposure variables. This chapter outlines the various methodological considerations that paved the way for meaningful cross-linguistic comparison of the participants’ expressive lexicon sizes. In so doing, it hopes to provide a template for and encourage further research directed at establishing a threshold for SLI risk in children exposed to more than one language.
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In this paper we present our experience-based observations on conducting a psycholinguistic research project which aims at studying cognitive and linguistic development of Polish children growing up out of Poland. We describe the project... more
In this paper we present our experience-based observations on conducting a psycholinguistic research project which aims at studying cognitive and linguistic development of Polish children growing up out of Poland. We describe the project background and aims, and discuss the aspects of the research that – in time – turned out to be hugely challenging in terms of maintaining a representative sample. In particular, we discuss the problems of participant recruitment and low study participation as well as practical obstacles related to conducting a complex and logistically burdensome research from abroad. We relate our observations about the factors that could contribute to the bias in our participant sample, including parents’ diverse attitudes to bilingualism and bilingual upbringing. Further we present the socio-demographic characteristics of our participant sample. Finally, we describe next steps of the project completion; we discuss the goals of our future analyses that hopefully will serve as a base for developing recommendations for practitioners and parents of bilingual children that can help to guide child upbringing and develop education strategies as well as clinical diagnosis.
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WYZWANIA W DIAGNOZIE ROZWOJU JĘZYKOWEGO DZIECI DWU-I WIELOJĘZYCZNYCH Autorki artykułu – po zdefiniowaniu pojęcia dwujęzyczności i przedstawieniu charakterystyki rozwoju językowego dzieci dwujęzycznych – przedstawiły wyzwania, jakie stają... more
WYZWANIA W DIAGNOZIE ROZWOJU JĘZYKOWEGO DZIECI DWU-I WIELOJĘZYCZNYCH Autorki artykułu – po zdefiniowaniu pojęcia dwujęzyczności i przedstawieniu charakterystyki rozwoju językowego dzieci dwujęzycznych – przedstawiły wyzwania, jakie stają przed osobami prowadzącymi diagnozę kompetencji językowych takich dzieci. W opracowaniu omówiono pytania, na które musi odpowiedzieć osoba prowadząca diagnozę – dotyczące potencjalnych różnic w przebiegu rozwoju językowego między dziećmi dwu-i jednojęzycznymi, charakterystyki zaplecza językowego oraz charakterystyki ogólnego rozwoju, w tym zdolności intelektualnych dzieci dwujęzycznych, a także trudności z odpowiednim doborem technik diagnostycznych. Zaprezentowano ponadto najświeższe zalecenia dotyczące prowadzenia oceny poziomu rozwoju językowego oraz diagnozy specyficznego (pierwotnego) zaburzenia rozwoju językowego (SLI) u dzieci wielojęzycznych, wypracowane przez międzynarodowy zespół specjalistów w ramach programu współpracy europejskiej COST IS0804 oraz podjęto próbę adaptacji kulturowej tych zaleceń do polskich realiów, rozważając potencjalne wykorzystanie dostępnych w Polsce narzędzi w diagnozie dzieci wielojęzycznych.
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Polish and English differ in the surface realization of the underlying Determiner Phrase (DP): Polish lacks an article system, whereas English makes use of articles for both grammatical and pragmatic reasons. This difference has an impact... more
Polish and English differ in the surface realization of the underlying Determiner Phrase (DP): Polish lacks an article system, whereas English makes use of articles for both grammatical and pragmatic reasons. This difference has an impact on how referentiality is rendered in both languages. In this article, the authors investigate the use of referential markers by Polish–English bilingual children and Polish monolingual children. Using the LITMUS-MAIN picture stories, the authors collected speech samples of Polish–English bilinguals raised in the UK ( n = 92, mean age 5;7) and compared them with matched Polish monolinguals ( n = 92, mean age 5;7). The analyses revealed that the bilinguals’ mean length of utterance (MLU) in Polish was significantly higher than that of the monolinguals because the bilinguals produced significantly more referential markers (especially pronouns) which inflated their MLU. The authors posit that the non-standard referentiality used by the bilinguals in Po...
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We asked whether parental questionnaires on the heritage language proficiency of bilingual children might elucidate how proficient bilingual children are in their heritage language. We tested 20 UK-based Polish–English bilingual children... more
We asked whether parental questionnaires on the heritage language proficiency of bilingual children might elucidate how proficient bilingual children are in their heritage language. We tested 20 UK-based Polish–English bilingual children between 4;5 and 5;9 years on Polish and English versions of the Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLTs). These comprise receptive and expressive picture tasks. Our bilingual group performed significantly worse on the Polish CLTs than on the English CLTs overall. They also performed significantly worse on the English CLTs than did an age- and gender-matched group of monolingual English-speaking children. Therefore our bilingual sample represent the type of bilinguals for whom education professionals have difficulty determining whether weak English is due to diminished English input vs. an underlying speech, language or communication need. Parents of the bilinguals completed a Polish adaptation of the Children’s Communication Checklist 2. They also comp...
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The present study examined references to cognitive states and emotions in narratives produced by mothers and preschoolers (aged 3 or 5 years) in Polish and American families. Participants were 32 mother-child dyads from Poland and 32... more
The present study examined references to cognitive states and emotions in narratives produced by mothers and preschoolers (aged 3 or 5 years) in Polish and American families. Participants were 32 mother-child dyads from Poland and 32 mother-child dyads from the United States. The two samples were matched with regard to child age, child gender, maternal age, and maternal education. The mother-child dyads were asked to tell three personal narratives. The co-constructed narratives were coded for mother and child references to cognitive states and emotions. Polish mothers were found to include significantly more references to cognitive states in their narratives than American mothers. Results also revealed significant correlations between mothers’ and children’s references to cognitive states across both samples. Related to child development, 5-year-olds produced significantly more tokens in the narratives than 3-year-olds. This study shows that mothers’ use of cognitive state terms in ...
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This article investigates whether the bilingual status of 56 typically developing children aged 60-69 months influenced their lexical abilities. The participants were identified as Maltese-dominant (Me) (n = 21), English-dominant (Em) (n... more
This article investigates whether the bilingual status of 56 typically developing children aged 60-69 months influenced their lexical abilities. The participants were identified as Maltese-dominant (Me) (n = 21), English-dominant (Em) (n = 15) and balanced bilingual (ME) (n = 20) on the basis of language exposure and proficiency, as reported by their parents. Comprehension and production of nouns and verbs were measured using Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT) in Maltese (CLT-MT) and British English (CLT-EN). Significant effects of bilingual group were identified for performance on lexical comprehension. For production, consistent bilingual group effects resulted when accurate concepts lexicalised in the test language were scored. Lexical mixing was more pronounced when children were tested in their non-dominant language. Maltese noun production elicited the highest levels of mixing across all groups. Findings point towards the need to consider specific exposure dynamics to...
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The novel assessment tool Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT) aims for comparable cross-linguistic assessment of multilingual children's lexical skills by basing each language version on two language-specific variables: age of... more
The novel assessment tool Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT) aims for comparable cross-linguistic assessment of multilingual children's lexical skills by basing each language version on two language-specific variables: age of acquisition (AoA) and complexity index (CI), a novel measure related to phonology, morphology, exposure and etymology. This article investigates the validity of this methodology, asking whether the underlying properties are robust predictors of children's performance. The Polish and Norwegian CLTs were used to assess 32 bilingual Polish-Norwegian, 34 monolingual Norwegian and 36 monolingual Polish children. The effects of AoA and CI were contrasted with frequency in child directed speech (CDS) and imageability, two known predictors of lexical development. AoA was a reliable predictor of performance within all parts of CLT, in contrast to CI. Apart from AoA, only exposure and CDS frequency had a significant effect within both monolinguals and bi...
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Child multilingualism is a norm in many cultures and represents a common way of language development in Europe due to enhanced migration. Bilingual and multilingual children are prone to have smaller vocabularies (at least in one of their... more
Child multilingualism is a norm in many cultures and represents a common way of language development in Europe due to enhanced migration. Bilingual and multilingual children are prone to have smaller vocabularies (at least in one of their languages) compared to monolinguals (Bialystok, Luk, Peets, & Yang, 2010). This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to disentangle typical bi/multilingual development from Specific Language Impairment (SLI, Leonard, 2000). Accurate assessment of lexical knowledge of bi/multilingual children in all of their languages is needed to differentiate bi/multilingual children with typical language development from delayed, impaired or unbalanced language development. This symposium presents an innovative method for constructing picture lexical tasks (Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks/CLT) for preschool children that are fully comparable across a wide range of languages; baseline results obtained for monolingual children (for 18 languages) and three studies using the CLT in various cultural contexts: (a) bilingual immigrant community in Norway, (b) multilingual European society in Luxembourg, and (c) multilingual African society in South Africa). The CLT is a part of the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery, designed within the COST Action IS0804. The language specific CLTs were constructed according to the same set of rules and criteria of target words selection for each language and consist of cultural-fair pictures. The CLT comprises picture choice (word comprehension) and picture naming (word production) tasks for nouns and verbs. Language specific CLTs used in combinations assure impartial assessment of vocabulary in all languages of bi-/multilingual child. The CLT can be used to obtain specific language profiles (for comprehension/ production and nouns/verbs). This symposium brings together studies conducted in 16 countries and shows both similarities and differences in patterns of lexical growth in mono- and multilingual children across various social and cultural settings using the CLT.
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Early speech diary data of one Polish girl - Inka (1;0 – 2;2) were analyzed to establish the course of emergence of the first derivational category in the child speech. Diminutives which are in general very productive category in Polish... more
Early speech diary data of one Polish girl - Inka (1;0 – 2;2) were analyzed to establish the course of emergence of the first derivational category in the child speech. Diminutives which are in general very productive category in Polish and are especially frequent in child-directed speech (CDS) occurred to be formed productively by the child as early as at the age of 1;5. Five indicators of category productivity in the child’s speech were used: (1) total number of diminutives; (2) spontaneous use of diminutives; (3) number of different formants used in DIM words; (4) number of different stems used by Inka in DIMs; (5) proportion of diminutives for which simple forms were found. First four of them showed systematic developmental changes indicating that about age 1;5 Inka started to form diminutives productively. Frequency of diminutives in Inka’s speech was compared to that in adult’s utterances directed to her. The comparison revealed that the profile of proportion of DIMs in Inka’s speech does not reflect the quantitative characteristics of CDS, since Inka used proportionally more diminutives than adults from the age of 1;5.
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Home Home. ...
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Variability in reasons for sharing narratives with their preschoolers was examined across samples of middle-class American mothers and Polish mothers. Participants responded to an open-ended interview question and completed a 54-item... more
Variability in reasons for sharing narratives with their preschoolers was examined across samples of middle-class American mothers and Polish mothers. Participants responded to an open-ended interview question and completed a 54-item measure, the Parents’ Beliefs About Storytelling Questionnaire. Several significant differences were found across the samples. The American mothers more strongly endorsed the use of narratives to help their child
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This article presents the results of a survey on yet under-researched aspects of remote learning and learning difficulties in higher education during the initial stage (March-June 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2182 students... more
This article presents the results of a survey on yet under-researched aspects of remote learning and learning difficulties in higher education during the initial stage (March-June 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2182 students from University of Warsaw in Poland completed a two-part questionnaire regarding academic achievements in the academic year 2019/2020, living conditions and stress related to learning and pandemic, as well as basic demographic information, and Dyslexia Diagnosis Questionnaire (DDQ). The analyses were carried out in three subgroups of students: who self-reported having a formal diagnosis of dyslexia (CDYS), self-reported reading difficulties, but had no formal diagnosis of dyslexia (SIDYS), and who reported no reading difficulties (CON). The results of the survey revealed that compared with the CON group, more students from CDYS and SIDYS groups did not pass at least one exam in the summer semester. CDYS and SIDYS groups experienced higher stress due to epidemiological restrictions, they had more difficulties than CON with the organisation of learning and obtaining credit during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicate a need for special consideration of additional support for students experiencing reading difficulties (whether or not they have a formal diagnosis).
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We present a new set of subjective Age of Acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in seven languages from various language families and cultural settings: American English, Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Lebanese Arabic,... more
We present a new set of subjective Age of Acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in seven languages from various language families and cultural settings: American English, Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Lebanese Arabic, Malaysian Malay, Persian, and Western Armenian. The ratings were collected from a total of 173 participants and were highly reliable in each language. We applied the same method of data collection as used in a previous study on 25 languages which allowed us to create a database of fully comparable AoA ratings of 299 words in 32 languages. We found that in the seven languages not included in the previous study, the words are estimated to be acquired at roughly the same age as in the previously reported languages, i.e. mostly between the ages of 1 and 7 years. We also found that the order of word acquisition is moderately to highly correlated across all 32 languages, which extends our previous conclusion that early words are acquired in similar order across a wide range of languages and cultures. Citation: Łuniewska M, Wodniecka Z, Miller CA, Smolík F, Butcher M, Chondrogianni V, et al. (2019) Age of acquisition of 299 words in seven languages: American English, Czech, Gaelic, Lebanese Arabic, Malay, Persian and Western Armenian. PLoS ONE 14(8): e0220611. https://doi.
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http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/qw6Yffxcxu26fE7cRX5t/full Reading and telling stories to children improves their narrative skills, which is well-documented for monolinguals, but not for bilinguals. We investigated whether bilingual... more
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/qw6Yffxcxu26fE7cRX5t/full
Reading and telling stories to children improves their narrative skills, which is well-documented for monolinguals, but not for bilinguals. We investigated whether bilingual narratives improve when the child is provided with a model story. We studied the narratives of Polish-English bilingual children (n=75, mean age 5;7 years; months) raised in the UK. We elicited narratives through picture stories in two modes: told spontaneously and retold after a model provided by an adult experimenter. The bilinguals told and retold stories in Polish and English. The study combined a within-subject design, comparing the bilinguals' two languages, and a between-subject design, comparing the stories told and retold in Polish by the bilinguals and by Polish age-matched monolinguals (n=75). We investigated whether retelling might improve bilingual and monolingual storytelling to the same extent. In the stories, we assessed both the macrostructure (e.g. story structure and answered comprehension questions) and microstructure (e.g. type-token ratio). We found a positive effect of retelling for the macrostructure in both monolinguals and bilinguals (regardless of the language). As for the microstructure, when retelling, children told longer stories, regardless of the language (Polish, English) and group (bilingual, monolingual). We argue that retelling stories improves the narrative skills of bilinguals.
Keywords: narrative; macrostructure measures; microstructure measures; bilinguals; monolinguals
https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1434124
Reading and telling stories to children improves their narrative skills, which is well-documented for monolinguals, but not for bilinguals. We investigated whether bilingual narratives improve when the child is provided with a model story. We studied the narratives of Polish-English bilingual children (n=75, mean age 5;7 years; months) raised in the UK. We elicited narratives through picture stories in two modes: told spontaneously and retold after a model provided by an adult experimenter. The bilinguals told and retold stories in Polish and English. The study combined a within-subject design, comparing the bilinguals' two languages, and a between-subject design, comparing the stories told and retold in Polish by the bilinguals and by Polish age-matched monolinguals (n=75). We investigated whether retelling might improve bilingual and monolingual storytelling to the same extent. In the stories, we assessed both the macrostructure (e.g. story structure and answered comprehension questions) and microstructure (e.g. type-token ratio). We found a positive effect of retelling for the macrostructure in both monolinguals and bilinguals (regardless of the language). As for the microstructure, when retelling, children told longer stories, regardless of the language (Polish, English) and group (bilingual, monolingual). We argue that retelling stories improves the narrative skills of bilinguals.
Keywords: narrative; macrostructure measures; microstructure measures; bilinguals; monolinguals
https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1434124
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This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings... more
This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of w...
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Language input is crucial for language acquisition and especially for children's vocabulary size. Bilingual children receive reduced input in each of their languages, compared to monolinguals, and are reported to have smaller... more
Language input is crucial for language acquisition and especially for children's vocabulary size. Bilingual children receive reduced input in each of their languages, compared to monolinguals, and are reported to have smaller vocabularies, at least in one of their languages. Vocabulary acquisition in trilingual children has been largely understudied; only a few case studies have been published so far. Moreover, trilingual language acquisition in children has been rarely contrasted with language outcomes of bilingual and monolingual peers. We present a comparison of trilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children (total of 56 participants, aged 4;5–6;7, matched one-to-one for age, gender, and non-verbal IQ) in regard to their receptive and expressive vocabulary (measured by standardized tests), and relative frequency of input in each language (measured by parental report). The monolingual children were speakers of Polish or English, while the bilinguals and trilinguals were migrant children living in the United Kingdom, speaking English as a majority language and Polish as a home language. The trilinguals had another (third) language at home. For the majority language, English, no differences were found across the three groups, either in the receptive or productive vocabulary. The groups differed, however, in their performance in Polish, the home language. The trilinguals had lower receptive vocabulary than the monolinguals, and lower productive vocabulary compared to the monolinguals. The trilinguals showed similar lexical knowledge to the bilinguals. The bilinguals demonstrated lower scores than the monolinguals, but only in productive vocabulary. The data on reported language input show that input in English in bilingual and trilingual groups is similar, but the bilinguals outscore the trilinguals in relative frequency of Polish input. Overall, the results suggest that in the majority language, multilingual children may develop lexical skills similar to those of their monolingual peers. However, their minority language is weaker: the trilinguals scored lower than the Polish monolinguals on both receptive and expressive vocabulary tests, and the bilinguals showed reduced expressive knowledge but leveled out with the Polish monolinguals on receptive vocabulary. The results should encourage parents of migrant children to support home language(s), if the languages are to be retained in a longer perspective.
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Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological... more
Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals.
We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual, 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years; months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition) and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ and short term memory.
The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input.
We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual, 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years; months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition) and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ and short term memory.
The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input.
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This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings... more
This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0–6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small
between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than
verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.
between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than
verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.
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This paper reports on the development of the Malay Crosslinguistic Lexical Task (LITMUS-CLT) following the initiative of the COST Action IS0804 to create parallel tasks assessing various aspects of language development in bilingual and... more
This paper reports on the development of the Malay Crosslinguistic Lexical Task (LITMUS-CLT) following the initiative of the COST Action IS0804 to create parallel tasks assessing various aspects of language development in bilingual and multilingual children (Armon-Lotem, de Jong, & Meir, 2015). LITMUS-CLTs are picture naming and picture choice tasks assessing receptive and expressive knowledge of single nouns and verbs. CLTs are created according to the same criteria in each language individually with the use of a common picture database. The development of the Malay CLT follows the procedure designed within the COST Action IS0804 with the modifications required for a new language in the sample of CLT languages. To that end, two preparatory studies with adult native speakers of Malay were conducted: a picture naming study using CLT picture base and a subjective age of acquisition (AoA) survey for words obtained in the picture naming study. The results of the two studies show that although Malay is typologically distant from languages included so far in the CLT sample, patterns similar to previous studies were obtained: nouns had higher naming agreement than verbs and AoA for all words was within the range of three to nine years (Łuniewska, et al., 2016).
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This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings... more
This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly
developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing
in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir,
2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish).
The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0–6;11 living in
15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew
significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There
was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than
verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production.
Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons
of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.
developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing
in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir,
2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish).
The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0–6;11 living in
15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew
significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There
was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than
verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production.
Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons
of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.
Research Interests:
Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words and the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that... more
Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words and the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here we consider systems and practices that support number word acquisition in order to determine that their relevance to quantifiers is limited. Instead, we propose that a major constraint in the acquisition of quantifiers comes from their rich and varied meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for 'all', 'none', 'some', 'some…not' and 'most' in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-year-old children and 536 adults. The findings reveal four dimensions of the meaning and use of quantifiers that constrain the order of acquisition in similar ways across languages in our sample. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language-and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation. language acquisition | universals | meaning | quantification
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Research Interests:
Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cogni-tive and perceptual systems and cultural practices... more
Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cogni-tive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier's specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for 'all', 'none', 'some', 'some…not' and 'most' in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-year-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language-and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation. language acquisition | universals | quantifiers | semantics | prag-matics
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We present a new set of subjective Age of Acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in 25 languages from 5 language families (Afroasiatic: Semitic languages; Altaic: Turkic language: Indo-european: Baltic, Celtic,... more
We present a new set of subjective Age of Acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in 25 languages from 5 language families (Afroasiatic: Semitic languages; Altaic: Turkic language: Indo-european: Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Slavic and Romance languages; Niger-Congo: Bantu language; Uralic: Finnic and Ugric languages). Adult native speakers reported the age at which they had learned each word. We present comparison of the AoA ratings across all languages by contrasting them in pairs. This comparison shows a consistency in the order of ratings across 25 languages. Data are then analysed (1) to ascertain how demographic characteristics of participants influence AoA estimations and (2) to assess differences caused by the exact form of target question (when did you learn vs. when do children learn this word); (3) to compare ratings obtained in our study to those of previous studies; and (4) to assess the validity of our study by comparison with quasi-objective AoA norms derived from MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDIs). All 299 words were judged as acquired early (mostly before the age of 6 years). AoA ratings were associated with the rater’s social or language status, but not with the rater’s age or education. Parents reported words to be learned earlier, and bilinguals later. Estimations of the age at which children learn the words revealed significantly lower ratings of AoA. Finally, comparisons with previous AoA and MB-CDI norms support the validity of the present estimations. Our AoA ratings are available for research or other purposes.
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This paper examines word-formation abilities in coining compounds and derivatives in preschool children and adult speakers of two languages (English and Polish) differing in overall word-formation productivity and in favoring... more
This paper examines word-formation abilities in coining compounds and derivatives in preschool children and adult speakers of two languages (English and Polish) differing in overall word-formation productivity and in favoring of par-
ticular word-formation patterns (compounding vs. derivation). An elicitation picture naming task was designed to assess
these abilities across a range of word-formation categories. Adult speakers demonstrated well-developed word-formation
skills in patterns both typical and non-typical for their native language. In contrast with adult results, preschool children
predominantly coined innovations conforming to the general pattern of their language: Polish children favoring deriva-
tion and American children favoring compounding. The results show that although children are improving their word-
formation skills during the preschool years, they need much more experience to come to the mature proficiency in using
the variety of word-formation patterns available in their language.
ticular word-formation patterns (compounding vs. derivation). An elicitation picture naming task was designed to assess
these abilities across a range of word-formation categories. Adult speakers demonstrated well-developed word-formation
skills in patterns both typical and non-typical for their native language. In contrast with adult results, preschool children
predominantly coined innovations conforming to the general pattern of their language: Polish children favoring deriva-
tion and American children favoring compounding. The results show that although children are improving their word-
formation skills during the preschool years, they need much more experience to come to the mature proficiency in using
the variety of word-formation patterns available in their language.
Research Interests:
Abstract The aim of this randomised crossover study was to investigate the development of reading skills in children with low letter knowledge in the first year of their formal reading instruction and to assess the effectiveness of... more
Abstract
The aim of this randomised crossover study was to investigate the development of reading skills in children with low letter knowledge in the first year of their formal reading instruction and to assess the effectiveness of GraphoGame Polish (PL) – intensive computer game-based training in recognition of grapheme-phoneme associations.
The results show that even though children with initial poor letter knowledge finally achieved the level of the reference group in terms of letter naming, there was still a significant gap between them in reading speed of words and pseudowords.
The experiment investigating the training effectiveness did not show significant differences between the GraphoGame playing group and the group playing a maths game in respect to changes in letter knowledge. The reading skills of both groups of players increased between the assessments with a similar pace.
The aim of this randomised crossover study was to investigate the development of reading skills in children with low letter knowledge in the first year of their formal reading instruction and to assess the effectiveness of GraphoGame Polish (PL) – intensive computer game-based training in recognition of grapheme-phoneme associations.
The results show that even though children with initial poor letter knowledge finally achieved the level of the reference group in terms of letter naming, there was still a significant gap between them in reading speed of words and pseudowords.
The experiment investigating the training effectiveness did not show significant differences between the GraphoGame playing group and the group playing a maths game in respect to changes in letter knowledge. The reading skills of both groups of players increased between the assessments with a similar pace.
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Variability in reasons for sharing narratives with their preschoolers was examined across samples of middle-class American mothers and Polish mothers. Participants responded to an open-ended interview question and completed a 54-item... more
Variability in reasons for sharing narratives with their preschoolers was examined across samples of middle-class American mothers and Polish mothers. Participants responded to an open-ended
interview question and completed a 54-item measure, the Parents’ Beliefs About Storytelling Questionnaire. Several significant differences were found across the samples. The American mothers more strongly endorsed the use of narratives to help their child remember important people in their lives and to teach moral or life lessons. They also indicated stronger beliefs that good narratives include contextual information, have chronological order, and tell a truthful story. Polish mothers more strongly indicated that they talk with their child about past events in order to help the child distinguish good from evil. Content analysis of the mothers’ responses to the open-ended question revealed that more Polish than American mothers reported talking with their child about past events to provide explanations to the child, provide emotional support to the child, and connect present events with past events. A greater proportion of American mothers as compared to Polish mothers indicated that they shared narratives with their child to assess the child’s memory. Many of the Polish mothers discussed a specific context in which they shared narratives with their child (i.e., when looking at photographs together).
interview question and completed a 54-item measure, the Parents’ Beliefs About Storytelling Questionnaire. Several significant differences were found across the samples. The American mothers more strongly endorsed the use of narratives to help their child remember important people in their lives and to teach moral or life lessons. They also indicated stronger beliefs that good narratives include contextual information, have chronological order, and tell a truthful story. Polish mothers more strongly indicated that they talk with their child about past events in order to help the child distinguish good from evil. Content analysis of the mothers’ responses to the open-ended question revealed that more Polish than American mothers reported talking with their child about past events to provide explanations to the child, provide emotional support to the child, and connect present events with past events. A greater proportion of American mothers as compared to Polish mothers indicated that they shared narratives with their child to assess the child’s memory. Many of the Polish mothers discussed a specific context in which they shared narratives with their child (i.e., when looking at photographs together).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Early speech diary data of one Polish girl - Inka (1;0 – 2;2) were analyzed to establish the course of emergence of the first derivational category in the child speech. Diminutives which are in general very productive category in Polish... more
Early speech diary data of one Polish girl - Inka (1;0 – 2;2) were analyzed to establish the course of emergence of the first derivational category in the child speech. Diminutives which are in general very productive category in Polish and are especially frequent in child-directed speech (CDS) occurred to be formed productively by the child as early as at the age of 1;5. Five indicators of category productivity in the child’s speech were used: (1) total number of diminutives; (2) spontaneous use of diminutives; (3) number of different formants used in DIM words; (4) number of different stems used by Inka in DIMs; (5) proportion of diminutives for which simple forms were found. First four of them showed systematic developmental changes indicating that about age 1;5 Inka started to form diminutives productively. Frequency of diminutives in Inka’s speech was compared to that in adult’s utterances directed to her. The comparison revealed that the profile of proportion of DIMs in Inka’s speech does not reflect the quantitative characteristics of CDS, since Inka used proportionally more diminutives than adults from the age of 1;5.
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The present work is an attempt to explain how the structure of derived words influences the order of acquisition of word formation rules. Three main types of derivatives — transpositions, modifications and mutations — are investigated in... more
The present work is an attempt to explain how the structure of derived words influences the order of acquisition of word formation rules. Three main types of derivatives — transpositions, modifications and mutations — are investigated in Polish child language. The differences among the three categories (analyzed in nouns, verbs and adjectives) are discussed, regarding semantic and formal changes undergone in the process of forming complex words. It is claimed that semantic-formal correspondence is an essential factor influencing the order of acquisition of word formation rules. Modifications in which the correspondence is both preserved and has a simple character emerge earlier than the other types of derivatives — transpositions (the correspondence is broken) and mutations (the correspondence is complex). The proposal is said to be complementary to Clark’s principles of acquisition of complex words (Clark, 1993).
Polish has a very rich word formation system (compared e.g. with English), thus the analysis of word formation acquisition in such a language seems to be especially important for developmental psycholinguistic research. The proposal is tested on four Polish children’s speech diaries available in CHILDES (Smoczynska, 1998). All data available from ages two to seven were analyzed. The analyses revealed that indeed modifications are acquired earlier than transpositions and mutations. The consequences of the finding for psycholinguistic theory are discussed.
Polish has a very rich word formation system (compared e.g. with English), thus the analysis of word formation acquisition in such a language seems to be especially important for developmental psycholinguistic research. The proposal is tested on four Polish children’s speech diaries available in CHILDES (Smoczynska, 1998). All data available from ages two to seven were analyzed. The analyses revealed that indeed modifications are acquired earlier than transpositions and mutations. The consequences of the finding for psycholinguistic theory are discussed.
Research Interests:
W artykule poruszona jest problematyka możliwości posługiwania się obrazkowymi testami rozumienia słów w diagnostyce logopedycznej osób z uszkodzeniami słuchu (US). Prezentowany jest przykład dostosowania procedury i interpretacji wyników... more
W artykule poruszona jest problematyka możliwości posługiwania się obrazkowymi testami rozumienia słów w diagnostyce logopedycznej osób z uszkodzeniami słuchu (US). Prezentowany jest przykład dostosowania procedury i interpretacji wyników Obrazkowego Testu Słownikowego
– Rozumienie OTSR do badań dzieci i młodzieży z US. Przedstawiono przykładowe badania osób w różnym wieku i o odmiennej charakterystyce deficytów słuchowych. W oparciu
o nie oraz na podstawie doświadczeń w pracy terapeutycznej zaproponowano zmiany w procedurze badań OTSR, które pozwoliłyby na szerokie stosowanie testu w diagnostyce surdologopedycznej.
Omówiono konsekwencje wprowadzania zmian w procedurze w odniesieniu do interpretacji wyników OTSR i porównywania ich z istniejącymi normami dla dzieci jednojęzycznych o typowym rozwoju.
– Rozumienie OTSR do badań dzieci i młodzieży z US. Przedstawiono przykładowe badania osób w różnym wieku i o odmiennej charakterystyce deficytów słuchowych. W oparciu
o nie oraz na podstawie doświadczeń w pracy terapeutycznej zaproponowano zmiany w procedurze badań OTSR, które pozwoliłyby na szerokie stosowanie testu w diagnostyce surdologopedycznej.
Omówiono konsekwencje wprowadzania zmian w procedurze w odniesieniu do interpretacji wyników OTSR i porównywania ich z istniejącymi normami dla dzieci jednojęzycznych o typowym rozwoju.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
""[Picture Vocabulary Test - Comprehension] This is the first psychometric tool enabling the measurement of vocabulary size in monolingual Polish children aged 2 to 6 years. OTSR assesses understanding of nouns, verbs and adjectives in a... more
""[Picture Vocabulary Test - Comprehension]
This is the first psychometric tool enabling the measurement of vocabulary size in monolingual Polish children aged 2 to 6 years. OTSR assesses understanding of nouns, verbs and adjectives in a picture choice task. The test was normed on a representative sample of about 2000 children.
OTSR is accompanied by the manual including extensive theoretical rationale for the method of test construction, results of validity studies, instruction and norms in half-year intervals (separate for boys and girls) for general result as well as in three sub-scales for each of the word classes (nouns, verbs and adjectives).""
This is the first psychometric tool enabling the measurement of vocabulary size in monolingual Polish children aged 2 to 6 years. OTSR assesses understanding of nouns, verbs and adjectives in a picture choice task. The test was normed on a representative sample of about 2000 children.
OTSR is accompanied by the manual including extensive theoretical rationale for the method of test construction, results of validity studies, instruction and norms in half-year intervals (separate for boys and girls) for general result as well as in three sub-scales for each of the word classes (nouns, verbs and adjectives).""
Research Interests: Language Acquisition, Vocabulary, Polish, Word Learning, Vocabulary Acquisition, and 9 moreMorphological Awarness and Vocabulary Size, Psychometric Tools, Picture Vocabulary Test, Word Comprehension, Language Assessement, acquisition of Polish, Obrazkowy Test Słownikowy, Zasób Słownictwa, and Rozumienie Słów
Research Interests:
Polska wersja MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MB-CDI).
Polish version of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MB-CDI).
Polish version of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MB-CDI).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This is frequency list of Polish child directed speech (CDS) gathered from 8 corpora of parent-child conversations. It is provided in a form of an Excel tabulation. The file is available from CHILDES website. Polish is a highly inflected... more
This is frequency list of Polish child directed speech (CDS) gathered from 8 corpora of parent-child conversations. It is provided in a form of an Excel tabulation. The file is available from CHILDES website.
Polish is a highly inflected language and thus frequencies are provided for each word form and summed up for each lexeme as well.
Although only two of the corpora used are currently in CHILDES, the remaining ones will eventually be added. All corpora used include more than 1,179,000 word tokens with more than 794,000 word tokens in CDS (speech directed to children aged between 0;10 and 6;11 by people aged 8;0 or more), about 44,500 different inflected forms in CDS, and about 21,000 different lexemes in CDS.
Polish is a highly inflected language and thus frequencies are provided for each word form and summed up for each lexeme as well.
Although only two of the corpora used are currently in CHILDES, the remaining ones will eventually be added. All corpora used include more than 1,179,000 word tokens with more than 794,000 word tokens in CDS (speech directed to children aged between 0;10 and 6;11 by people aged 8;0 or more), about 44,500 different inflected forms in CDS, and about 21,000 different lexemes in CDS.
Research Interests:
Child multilingualism is a norm in many cultures and represents a common way of language development in Europe due to enhanced migration. Bilingual and multilingual children are prone to have smaller vocabularies (at least in one of their... more
Child multilingualism is a norm in many cultures and represents a common way of language development in Europe due to enhanced migration. Bilingual and multilingual children are prone to have smaller vocabularies (at least in one of their languages) compared to monolinguals (Bialystok, Luk, Peets, & Yang, 2010). This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to disentangle typical bi/multilingual development from Specific Language Impairment (SLI, Leonard, 2000). Accurate assessment of lexical knowledge of bi/multilingual children in all of their languages is needed to differentiate bi/multilingual children with typical language development from delayed, impaired or unbalanced language development. This aim is particularly challenging as any tool designed for assessment of lexical knowledge in multilingual context should consider the fact that words as always language specific.
This talk presents an innovative method for constructing picture lexical tasks (Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks/CLTs) for preschool bi/multilingual children: a multilingual parallel task construction procedure. The CLTs are a part of the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery, designed within the COST Action IS0804 (Bi-SLI). The procedure for constructing CLTs included: (1) the preparatory studies (obtaining the list of meanings/concepts shared across languages; assessing the age of acquisition of words for shared concepts), (2) establishing the set of rules and criteria of target words selection for each language, (3) design of cultural-fair pictures for shared concepts, and (4) pilot studies with monolinguals.
The CLTs comprise picture choice (word comprehension) and picture naming (word production) tasks for nouns and verbs. The tasks can be used to obtain specific language profiles (for comprehension/production and nouns/verbs).
The procedure of CLTs design ensures that various language versions are fully comparable across a wide range of languages. However, baseline data obtained for monolingual children (in 17 languages) show that results may still differ across languages. Thus the comparability in design should not be confounded with equality of results across languages (Haman et al, 2014). In consequence norms for specific populations are needed before CLTs shall be used for diagnosis. This also indicates the need for reference groups in basic research studies when cross-linguistic comparisons in multilingual children are planned. Examples from Luxembourg (Engel de Abreu, 2014) and South African studies (Potgieter & Southwood, 2014) illustrate the range of discrepancies in CLTs results. Further consequences of language specificity of CLTs for its future use in diagnosis and research will be discussed.
This talk presents an innovative method for constructing picture lexical tasks (Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks/CLTs) for preschool bi/multilingual children: a multilingual parallel task construction procedure. The CLTs are a part of the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery, designed within the COST Action IS0804 (Bi-SLI). The procedure for constructing CLTs included: (1) the preparatory studies (obtaining the list of meanings/concepts shared across languages; assessing the age of acquisition of words for shared concepts), (2) establishing the set of rules and criteria of target words selection for each language, (3) design of cultural-fair pictures for shared concepts, and (4) pilot studies with monolinguals.
The CLTs comprise picture choice (word comprehension) and picture naming (word production) tasks for nouns and verbs. The tasks can be used to obtain specific language profiles (for comprehension/production and nouns/verbs).
The procedure of CLTs design ensures that various language versions are fully comparable across a wide range of languages. However, baseline data obtained for monolingual children (in 17 languages) show that results may still differ across languages. Thus the comparability in design should not be confounded with equality of results across languages (Haman et al, 2014). In consequence norms for specific populations are needed before CLTs shall be used for diagnosis. This also indicates the need for reference groups in basic research studies when cross-linguistic comparisons in multilingual children are planned. Examples from Luxembourg (Engel de Abreu, 2014) and South African studies (Potgieter & Southwood, 2014) illustrate the range of discrepancies in CLTs results. Further consequences of language specificity of CLTs for its future use in diagnosis and research will be discussed.
Research Interests:
"Delayed and impaired lexical abilities are among the earliest indicators of SLI (Leonard, 1998). Children with SLI show a delay in lexical development and display relatively weak semantic categories (Leonard & Deevy, 2004; McGregor,... more
"Delayed and impaired lexical abilities are among the earliest indicators of SLI (Leonard, 1998). Children with SLI show a delay in lexical development and display relatively weak semantic categories (Leonard & Deevy, 2004; McGregor, Newman, Reilly, & Capone, 2002). Bilingual children often have smaller lexicons in each of their languages (Bialystok, Luk, Peets, & Yang, 2010), even though the number of words in the two languages put together may be no different than monolingual norms (Marchman, Fernald, & Hurtado, 2009). Lexical abilities are a potentially early identification measure of bilingual SLI (Gatt, Letts, & Klee, 2008), and can be used as a baseline for assessment of bilingual dominance/proficiency. To this aim comparable measures of lexical knowledge in both languages of a bilingual child are necessary.
The Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT) designed within COST Action IS0804 WG3 (Working Group 3) form an attempt to address this need for children at the age of 5 years or younger ones. In this paper the rationale and the method for CLT construction will be discussed.
The CLT were conceived to assess comprehension and production of nouns and verbs in different languages. Response accuracy measured in these tasks indicate the level of receptive and expressive vocabulary size, while reaction time measurement (i.e. comprehension and naming speed) provide insight into the processing demands of passive and active knowledge across the two word classes. Picture choice and picture naming were chosen as tasks least involving other types of linguistic or conceptual skills.
A unique procedure for designing CLT in parallel for 34 different languages according to the same criteria was used by members of WG3.
Phases of CLT design will be described, including:
(1) Finding a set of CLT-candidate words (158 nouns and 142 verbs) mostly shared across 34 languages (a picture naming and rating study)
(2) Determining formal complexity of CLT-candidate words for each of the languages involved (expert informants, uniform procedure for all languages)
(3) Determining the age of acquisition (AoA) of CLT-candidate words (subjective on-line rating study in each language)
(4) Selecting a list target words for each language according to key criteria (word complexity and its age of acquisition) & preparing a uniform instruction for CLT use.
(5) Designing a set of culturally-neutral coloured pictures for all CLT-candidate words.
This procedure guarantees comparability of the results for different language pairs. This is crucial for accurate assessment of lexical knowledge in both languages of bilingual children.
Currently CLT are ready for 12 languages (Afrikaans, English, Finnish, Italian, Lebanese, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Turkish) and more versions are underway. First results for monolingual, bilingual typically developing children and mono-SLI and bi-SLI children are going to be shortly presented. Detailed results are going to be shown on a series of posters at the conference.
"
The Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT) designed within COST Action IS0804 WG3 (Working Group 3) form an attempt to address this need for children at the age of 5 years or younger ones. In this paper the rationale and the method for CLT construction will be discussed.
The CLT were conceived to assess comprehension and production of nouns and verbs in different languages. Response accuracy measured in these tasks indicate the level of receptive and expressive vocabulary size, while reaction time measurement (i.e. comprehension and naming speed) provide insight into the processing demands of passive and active knowledge across the two word classes. Picture choice and picture naming were chosen as tasks least involving other types of linguistic or conceptual skills.
A unique procedure for designing CLT in parallel for 34 different languages according to the same criteria was used by members of WG3.
Phases of CLT design will be described, including:
(1) Finding a set of CLT-candidate words (158 nouns and 142 verbs) mostly shared across 34 languages (a picture naming and rating study)
(2) Determining formal complexity of CLT-candidate words for each of the languages involved (expert informants, uniform procedure for all languages)
(3) Determining the age of acquisition (AoA) of CLT-candidate words (subjective on-line rating study in each language)
(4) Selecting a list target words for each language according to key criteria (word complexity and its age of acquisition) & preparing a uniform instruction for CLT use.
(5) Designing a set of culturally-neutral coloured pictures for all CLT-candidate words.
This procedure guarantees comparability of the results for different language pairs. This is crucial for accurate assessment of lexical knowledge in both languages of bilingual children.
Currently CLT are ready for 12 languages (Afrikaans, English, Finnish, Italian, Lebanese, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Turkish) and more versions are underway. First results for monolingual, bilingual typically developing children and mono-SLI and bi-SLI children are going to be shortly presented. Detailed results are going to be shown on a series of posters at the conference.
"
Research Interests:
Broszura wysyłana do rodziców zapraszanych do badania normalizacyjnego Inwentarza Rozwoju Mowy i Komunikacji (IRMiK), realizowanego w Instytucie Badań Edukacyjnych (IBE).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Sentence Repetition Task developed by Theo Marinis (Marinis 2010) is a tool which is to be used for differentiating typically developing children from children with specific language impairment. The task controls for length and word... more
Sentence Repetition Task developed by Theo Marinis
(Marinis 2010) is a tool which is to be used for
differentiating typically developing children from children
with specific language impairment.
The task controls for length and word frequency and
manipulates morpho-syntactic complexity.
The original, English version was adapted into Polish.
Features taken into consideration in the adaptation
included i.a.:
• typical length of words in each of the languages
•number of words within a sentence
•ratio of function words to content words
(Marinis 2010) is a tool which is to be used for
differentiating typically developing children from children
with specific language impairment.
The task controls for length and word frequency and
manipulates morpho-syntactic complexity.
The original, English version was adapted into Polish.
Features taken into consideration in the adaptation
included i.a.:
• typical length of words in each of the languages
•number of words within a sentence
•ratio of function words to content words