A longitudinal investigation of language mixing in Spanish-English dual language learners: the role of language proficiency, variability, and sociolinguistic factors.
Simona Montanari, Wendy Ochoa, Kaveri Subrahmanyam
PMID 31284888WHAT IT FOUND
Spanish-English preschoolers mixed languages little.
After a year in English preschool, Spanish use in English speech became virtually absent, while English use in Spanish speech remained common. At entry, larger English vocabulary linked to less mixing in English.
Key findings
01Language mixing was low overall, and after a year of preschool Spanish mixing into English became virtually non-existent while English mixing into Spanish remained.
02At preschool entry, children who mixed more Spanish into English had smaller English vocabularies, while children who mixed more English into Spanish had larger English vocabularies.
03An exploratory cluster analysis produced three profiles: lower bilingual skills with variable mixing, higher bilingual skills with low mixing, and lower Spanish skills with high mixing in Spanish.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was moderate in size, and children were assessed only at two time points, one year apart. The analyses were conducted in monolingual English and Spanish contexts, where children were encouraged or required to use one language, so the study may not show how much mixing happens in natural bilingual conversation. The cluster analysis was exploratory and used 23 cases, so its profiles should be treated as tentative. One child was excluded because only 15 utterances were available, and two more cases were excluded as outliers, which may affect the remaining sample. The study included low socioeconomic status Spanish-English dual language learners in Head Start programs in Southern California, so the patterns may not apply to all bilingual children.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that language mixing shows language disorder or confusion. In this study, mixing was low overall, changed with language context and age, and was not consistently linked to proficiency measures.