Sentence Diversity in Spanish-English Bilingual Toddlers

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Developmental Psychology
• Pediatrics

Background:

• Limited tools exist for assessing language development in Spanish-English dual language learner (DLL) toddlers in the U.S.
• Understanding early sentence development (single words to multiword utterances) is crucial for identifying potential language delays (LDs).

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe sentence diversity development in Spanish-English DLL toddlers from 24 to 30 months of age.
• To investigate sentence diversity in DLL toddlers with and without language delays (LDs).
• To adapt existing sentence diversity protocols for the Spanish-English DLL context.

Main Methods:

• Spontaneous language samples were collected from Spanish-dominant DLL children and their mothers during free-play.
• Existing sentence diversity protocols were adapted to analyze subject-verb combinations in Spanish and English.

Main Results:

• Children accurately separated grammatical structures for subject-verb combinations in Spanish and English.
• A strong preference for Spanish subject-verb combinations with null subjects was observed.
• The emergence of sentence diversity, unlike word combinations, distinguished children with and without early language delays (LDs).

Conclusions:

• DLLs do not confuse grammatical structures across languages; they show differential development, with stronger skills first appearing in the dominant language.
• Sentence diversity shows potential as a tool for assessing and monitoring language development in Spanish-English DLL toddlers.
• This study provides novel insights into early sentence diversity in a critical population.