A simplified approach to quantifying a child’s bilingual language experience

Lauren Calandruccio, Isabella Beninate, Jacob Oleson, Margaret K. Miller, Lori J. Leibold, Emily Buss, Barbara L. Rodriguez

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Purpose: Bilingual children’s linguistic experience can vary markedly from child to child. For appropriate audiological assessment and intervention, audiologists need accurate and efficient ways to describe and understand a bilingual child’s dynamic linguistic experience. This report documents an approach for quantitatively capturing a child’s language exposure and usage in a time-efficient manner. Method: A well-known pediatric bilingual language survey was administered to 83 parents of bilingual children, obtaining information about the child’s exposure to (input) and usage of (output) Spanish and English for seventeen 1-hr intervals during a typical weekday and weekend day. Results: A factor analysis indicated that capturing linguistic exposure and usage over three grouped-time intervals during a typical weekday and weekend day accounted for ≥ 74% of the total variance of the linguistic information captured with the full-length survey. Conclusions: Although further confirmation is required, these results suggest that collecting language exposure and usage data from parents of bilingual children for three grouped-time intervals provides similar information as a comprehensive hour-by-hour approach. A time-efficient method of capturing the dynamic bilingual linguistic experience of a child would benefit pediatric audiologists and speech-language pathologists alike.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)769-776
Number of pages8
JournalAmerican journal of audiology
Volume30
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2021

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Speech and Hearing

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