The dimensionality of Spanish in young Spanish-English dual language learners

UNSPECIFIED (2015) The dimensionality of Spanish in young Spanish-English dual language learners. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58. pp. 754-766. ISSN 1092-4388

Abstract

Purpose: This study examined the latent dimensionality of Spanish in young Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs). Method: Two-hundred eighty-six children participated. In their prekindergarten year children completed norm-referenced and experimental language measures in Spanish requiring different levels of cognitive processing in both receptive and expressive language modalities. Results: The best-fitting model suggested a bi-factor solution with a single general language factor ‘l’ plus two additional factors ‘word knowledge’ and ‘integrative language knowledge.’ The general trait l reflects the proportion of common item variance for all of the items and the group traits of ‘word knowledge’ and ‘integrative language knowledge’ explain additional domain-specific variance for those item subsets. Conclusion: Results suggest that the Spanish language in preschool-age Spanish-English DLLs is not separable into content, form, and use, nor is it separable by higher- and lower-level language domains or processing demands. Instead, it appears that a general language factor underlies oral language in Spanish in DLL preschoolers and that other factors account for additional variance over and above l. Findings are discussed in relation to a companion study of monolingual English-speaking prekindergarteners.