Language-Specific & Conceptual
Vocabulary in Bilingual Children
and Their Primary Caregivers
Christina J. Ausick
Cardon Children’s Medical Center
Margarita Kaushanskaya
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Introduction
• What we know…
• The influences on MONOLINGUAL
children’s vocabulary development
• Potential factors that influence
BILINGUAL children’s
vocabulary development,
but these are conflicting.
Goals of this project:
1. Explore the relationship between
primary caregivers language abilities
and children’s vocabulary performance
in monolingual and bilingual groups.
2. Compare monolingual and bilingual
children’s performance on languagespecific and conceptual vocabulary
measures.
Participants/Demographics
Monolinguals
Bilinguals
Sample Size
11 (5 males, 6 females)
10 (4 males, 6 females)
Chronological Age
6.32 (0.97)
6.33 (0.93)
Performance on K-BIT*
21.73 (7.46)
18.00 (5.64)
Primary Caregivers Sample Size
11 (1 male, 10 females)
10 (2 males, 8 females)
Primary Caregivers’ Years of Education
19.36 (4.39)
13.8 (3.58)
Primary Caregivers’ Chronological Age
39.98 (5.48)
29.46 (4.03)
Primary Caregivers’ K-BIT*
122.00 (9.04)
91.1 (17.49)
*
= Raw Scores reported for children, and Standard Scores reported for primar y caregivers.
Vocabulary Measures
• Expressive
Vocabulary Measures
 English:
• Woodcock-Johnson III:
Picture Vocabulary
 Spanish:
• Batería III WoodcockMuñoz: Vocabulario
Sobre Dibujos
• Receptive Vocabulary
Measures
 English:
• PPVT-III (Peabody
Picture Vocabulary
Test-III)
 Spanish:
• TVIP (Test de
Vocabulario en
Imagenes Peabody)
Total Conceptual Vocabulary Score: Only for bilingual children and
their caregivers, includes English and Spanish expressive and receptive
vocabulary measures.
WJ- III Picture
Vocabulary
Subtest; form
used for Total
Conceptual
Vocabulary
Results: Monolingual vs. Bilingual English
Vocabulary Performance
130
Monolingual
120
22
20
90
Bilingual LanguageSpecific
18
Bilingual Conceptual
16
80
14
110
100
70
12
60
10
50
Receptive Vocabulary Raw
Scores
Expressive Vocabulary Raw
Scores
Results: Bilinguals’ Vocabulary Performance
in English (Caregivers vs. Children)
Results: Bilinguals’ Vocabulary Performance
in Spanish (Caregivers vs. Children)
Results: Monolingual Children vs.
Primary Caregivers
Discussion: Vocabulary
Performance
• Monolingual Children scored higher on English
vocabulary measures compared to Bilingual
Children
• Conceptual scoring increases Bilinguals’ scores,
but does not eliminate the performance gap.
 Larger gap for receptive vocabulary
 Conceptual vocabulary calculation
method
Discussion: Input Quality
• Primary Caregiver’s Vocabulary
Performance vs. their Child’s Vocabulary
Performance
 Monolingual group’s correlations were not
significant.
 Bilingual group’s correlations were significant
for English vocabulary measures, but not for
Spanish vocabulary measures.
Acknowledgements
• A big “Thank You” goes out to:






Julie Washington
Susan Ellis Weismer
Vanessa Montoya
Stephanie Van Hecke
Marissa Stern
and, Ann Rogers
• Funding
• NIH XXXX
References
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