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. 2010 Oct;13(4):525-531.
doi: 10.1017/S1366728909990423.

Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children

Ellen Bialystok  1 , Gigi Luk  2 , Kathleen F Peets  3 , Sujin Yang  4
Affiliations

Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children

Ellen Bialystok et al. Biling (Camb Engl). 2010 Oct.

Abstract

Studies often report that bilingual participants possess a smaller vocabulary in the language of testing than monolinguals, especially in research with children. However, each study is based on a small sample so it is difficult to determine whether the vocabulary difference is due to sampling error. We report the results of an analysis of 1,738 children between 3 and 10 years old and demonstrate a consistent difference in receptive vocabulary between the two groups. Two preliminary analyses suggest that this difference does not change with different language pairs and is largely confined to words relevant to a home context rather than a school context.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean PPVT standard score and standard error by age and language group.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of PPVT standard scores in English for monolingual (n = 772) and bilingual (n = 966) children.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean PPVT standard score and 95% confidence intervals for monolingual English speakers (n=772), bilingual speakers of English and an East Asian language (n = 329), and bilingual speakers of English and a non-Asian language (n = 247).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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