Leamos Juntos! Bilingual books support Latine parents' Spanish language use during book-sharing interactions.
Alejandra Reinoso, Milton Guendica, Adriana Weisleder
PMID 40394971WHAT IT FOUND
Latine parents used significantly more Spanish in their own talk when sharing English-Spanish bilingual books compared to English-only books.
This occurred regardless of the parent's Spanish proficiency level. Bilingual text appears to prompt home language use during shared reading.
Key findings
01Parents used a higher proportion of Spanish word tokens in extra-textual talk when sharing the English-Spanish bilingual book than when sharing the English monolingual book.
02The increase in Spanish use was not moderated by the parents' self-reported Spanish proficiency, occurring in both lower and higher proficiency groups.
03While parents used a higher number of code-switches with bilingual books, the proportion of code-switched utterances did not reach statistical significance compared to monolingual books.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (n=24), which limits the power of the study, particularly for the exploratory subgroup analyses. The study compared bilingual books only to English-only books, not to Spanish-only books, so it is unclear if bilingual books are superior to native-language books for home language use. Participants were recruited from a specific Midwestern city and were generally highly educated, which may not represent all Latine families in the U.S. The study measured language use during a single, observed interaction via Zoom, which may differ from natural home reading practices.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that bilingual books improve the child's language development. This study measured the parent's speech output, not the child's learning outcomes. It shows that parents speak more Spanish when the text is bilingual, but it does not prove this increased exposure leads to better child language skills.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →