Factors that influence fast mapping in children exposed to Spanish and English

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether children exposed to 2 languages would benefit from the phonotactic probability cues of a single language in the same way as monolingual peers and to determine whether crosslinguistic influence would be present in a fast-mapping task.

Method: Two groups of typically developing children (monolingual English and bilingual Spanish-English) took part in a computer-based fast-mapping task that manipulated phonotactic probability. Children were preschool-aged (N = 50) or school-aged (N = 34). Fast mapping was assessed through name-identification and naming tasks. Data were analyzed using mixed analyses of variance with post hoc testing and simple regression.

Results: Bilingual and monolingual preschoolers showed sensitivity to English phonotactic cues in both tasks, but bilingual preschoolers were less accurate than monolingual peers in the naming task. School-aged bilingual children had nearly identical performance to monolingual peers.

Conclusion: Knowing that children exposed to two languages can benefit from the statistical cues of a single language can help inform ideas about instruction and assessment for bilingual learners.

Keywords: bilingual; children; phonotactic probability; word learning.