Johanne Paradis

University of Alberta | UAlberta · Department of Linguistics

Previous studies show that even though monolingual children find subject relatives easier than object relatives, their comprehension of object relatives can be facilitated by morphological cues. Given that in heritage contexts functional morphology is a vulnerable domain, a question that needs to be addressed is whether bilingual children, who are...

Although age of acquisition (AoA) is frequently used when examining the endpoint of second language (L2) learning, it is rarely used to examine the initial phases of L2 acquisition. The present study provided a unique look at the role of AoA in early language and literacy acquisition in the L2 by a priori selecting two groups of Arabic-English spea...

Limited research has been conducted on the literacy skills of Arabic‐speaking refugee children. This study investigated the concurrent and longitudinal roles of morphological awareness in Arabic word reading and reading comprehension. A total of 75 Syrian refugee children aged 6–13 years resettled in Canada were administered measures of nonverbal r...

Bilingual children are a more heterogenous group than their monolingual counterparts with respect to the sources of variation in their language learning environments, as well as the wide individual variation in their language abilities. Such heterogeneity in both individual difference factors and language abilities argues for the importance of an i...

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show heterogeneous language profiles beyond early language delays. Understanding the second language profiles of bilingual children with ASD is important for clinical practice in diverse societies. Accordingly, we examined the narrative abilities of bilinguals with ASD, with developmental language disord...

First-generation refugee children often experience pre- and post-migration adversity and display high levels of mental health/wellbeing difficulties, but to date, research has not examined the impact of such factors on refugee children's L2 acquisition. Accordingly, this study examined the influence of externalizing and internalizing problem behavi...

The current study sought to investigate whether word properties can facilitate the identification of developmental language disorder (DLD) in sequential bilinguals by analyzing properties in nouns and verbs in L2 spontaneous speech as potential DLD markers. Measures of semantic (imageability, concreteness), lexical (frequency, age of acquisition) a...

Over-identification of language disorder among bilingual children with typical development (TD) is a risk factor in assessment. One strategy for improving assessment accuracy with bilingual children is to determine which linguistic sub-domains differentiate bilingual children with TD from bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD...

Children who are refugees become bilingual in circumstances that are often challenging and that can vary across national contexts. We investigated the second language (L2) syntactic skills of Syrian children aged 6-12 living in Canada ( n = 56) and the Netherlands ( n = 47). Our goal was to establish the impact of the first language (L1 = Syrian Ar...

Despite growing research on individual differences in child bilinguals, few studies have focused on the development of syntax, included both languages, and studied newly arrived school-age migrant children. Accordingly, this study investigated the syntactic development of heritage language (HL) Syrian Arabic and L2 English by Syrian refugee childre...

This longitudinal study examined morphosyntactic development in the heritage Arabic-L1 and English-L2 of first-generation Syrian refugee children (mean age = 9.5; range = 6–13) within their first three years in Canada. Morphosyntactic abilities were measured using sentence repetition tasks (SRT) in English and Syrian Arabic that included diverse mo...

Word reading is a fundamental skill in reading and one of the building blocks of reading comprehension. Theories have posited that for second language (L2) learners, word reading skills are related if the children have sufficient experience in the L2 and are literate in the first language (L1). The L1 and L2 reading, phonological awareness skills,...

Canada has resettled more than 57,000 Syrian refugees since 2015 (Government of Canada, 2017). However, little is known about refugee children’s language and literacy development. The present study evaluated Syrian refugee children’s performance on language and literacy measures in English and Arabic, and examined whether the simple view of reading...

Research on the bilingual development of refugee children is limited, despite this group having distinct characteristics and migration experiences that could impact language development. This study examined the role of language environment factors, alongside age and cognitive factors, in shaping the Arabic as a first/heritage language and English a...

Previous research has established that early second language (L2) learners in classroom immersion may not ultimately produce all L2 morphosyntactic features as first language (L1) speakers of the language do, whereas L2 comprehension outcomes are reported to be less divergent from those of L1 speakers. However, immersion learners’ L2 comprehension...

Previous research suggests that increased second language (L2) input at home may not support L2 acquisition in children from migrant backgrounds. In drawing this conclusion, existing work has largely aggregated across family members. This study contrasts the effect of L2 input from older siblings with that from mothers. Participants were 113 child...

It is often claimed that child English L2 learners take up to seven years to attain English skills commensurate with those of monolingual peers; however, existing research is insufficient to know if this claim is valid for oral language abilities in particular. This study examined the lexical and morphological abilities of English L2 learners and t...

Aims In monolingual situations, mothers with higher levels of education are more likely to provide their children with enriched linguistic input. However, in bilingual situations, the relationship between maternal education and input is more complex because education may have occurred in one, but not both, of the languages. This study details this...

This study investigates the role of parental input quality on the acquisition of Greek as a heritage language in Western Canada. Focusing on subject use, we tested four groups of Greek speakers: monolingual children, heritage children, and the parents of each one of those groups. Participants completed an elicited production task designed to elicit...

Television is often suggested as a source of native-speaker input for children learning a second language (L2). This recommendation occurs despite the finding that high quantities of television viewing have been associated with depressed expressive language scores and even language delays in monolingual children. Given this paradox, this study cons...

Purpose: The narrative abilities of bilinguals with TD and with DLD/SLI in their English L2 were examined in order to 1) identify the narrative components that differentiate these two groups and 2) determine the role of age and input factors in predicting L2 narrative abilities in each group. Method: Participants were 24 English L2 children with...

A recurring question in the literature of heritage language acquisition, and more generally of bilingual acquisition, is whether all linguistic domains are sensitive to input reduction and to cross-linguistic influence and to what extent. According to the Interface Hypothesis, morphosyntactic phenomena regulated by discourse–pragmatic conditions ar...

Surprisingly, increased quantity of L2 input at home may not support L2 acquisition for children from immigrant backgrounds (e.g., Chondrogianni & Marinis, 2011; Páez et al., 2007; Paradis, 2011). This finding is based on estimates of input that are aggregated across family members, regardless of fluency level. Accordingly, this study contrasts the...

This study examined the phenomena of incomplete acquisition, attrition, and protracted acquisition of the L1 in HL children by focusing on the comprehension and production of subject and object relative clauses (RCs) in Mandarin HL children. A cross-sectional design (study 1) and a longitudinal design (study 2) were both included. Our results showe...

Research on bilingualism in children with developmental language and communication disorders has focused primarily on children with specific language impairment (SLI), but some recent research has emerged on children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this chapter we review research on bilingual development in children with SLI and ASD organiz...

Child Heritage Language

This study contrasts the effect of input from siblings - who have been argued to be fluent L2 speakers, with input from mothers - who have been argued to be less fluent L2 speakers, on children’s L2 abilities. We found that siblings are effective L2 models for children into the school years. In contrast, increased L2 input from mothers offers limit...

Participants were 89 immigrant/refugee children, living in Canada with diverse first languages (L1s). Regression modelling revealed that children’s L2 productive vocabulary and use of L2-complex syntax were influence by both the quantity and quality of L2-input they received at home. This input was, in turn, influenced by an interaction between the...

Recent research has focused on English L1 acquisition of complex sentences, but no study has examined complex sentences in production with child English L2 learners. The goal of this study was to determine 1) similarities/dissimilarities between child L2 and L1 acquisition of complex sentences and 2) the individual difference factors predicting L2...

Introduction: special section on interfaces between cognition and language development* - Volume 44 Issue 3 - CECILE DE CAT, JOHANNE PARADIS

The cumulative effects hypothesis (CEH) claims that bilingual development would be a challenge for children with specific language impairment (SLI). To date, research on second language (L2) children with SLI has been limited mainly to their early years of L2 exposure; however, examining the long-term outcomes of L2 children with SLI is essential f...

Previous research into the determinants of bilingual language acquisition in migrant children has focused on children from small immigrant families. Consequently, research has emphasized the role of maternal input in language development . Empirical investigations of refugee children’s development, especially in large families, are lacking. This st...

When it comes to learning a second language, it is a common assumption that younger is better. However, this belief has not stood up to empirical investigations of bilingual development . For immigrant and refugee children, early introduction of English can undermine bilingualism by jeopardizing their first language . Furthermore, older children te...

Bilingual children experience more variation in their language environment than monolingual children and this impacts their rate of language development with respect to monolinguals. How long it takes for bilingual children learning English as a second language (L2) to display similar abilities to monolingual age-peers has been estimated to be 4-6...

While age of acquisition effects have been researched extensively in adult second language (L2) acquisition, there is less research focused on examining age of acquisition effects in child language learners. Importantly, for child learners, delays in exposure to language can occur not only for a second but also for a first language (L1). In regard...

This study demonstrates that the effect of maternal education on language development is best understood through intermediary input variables. Higher levels of maternal education are not a guarantee of higher language outcomes.

Carroll (Carroll) takes issue with the use of parent report to obtain quantity of language exposure measures in research on bilingual development. When discussing parent questionnaires, Carroll writes “Temporal units are crude measures of exposure and they tell us nothing about input”. While I agree that temporal units do not tell us much about the...

This study examined accuracy in production and grammaticality judgements of verb morphology by eighteen Chinese-speaking children learning English as a second language (L2) followed longitudinally from four to six years of exposure to English, and who began to learn English at age 4;2. Children's growth in accuracy with verb morphology reached a pl...

Purpose: This study examined individual differences in English language learners' (ELLs) nonword repetition (NWR) accuracy, focusing on the effects of age, English vocabulary size, length of exposure to English and first language (L1) phonology. Method: Participants were 75 typically-developing ELLs (mean age 5;8) whose exposure to English began...

Purpose: To provide an overview of typical and atypical English L2 (ELL) development and to present strategies for clinical assessment with ELLs. Method: A review of studies examining the lexical, morphological, narrative and verbal memory abilities of ELLs is organized around three topics: Timeframe and characteristics of typical English L2 dev...

This study investigated the role of age-of-acquisition in determining whether young bilingual children show a pattern of L2/nonnative English, precocious BE acquisition, or whether they show the L1/native English pattern of synchronous acquisition of BE and inflectional morphology. Two groups of children with age-of-acquisition before or after 4;0...

This study investigated the referring expressions used for first mentions of participants and entities in narratives by Mandarin heritage language (HL) and monolingual children. Referring expressions for first mentions in Mandarin comprise lexical, morphological and syntactic devices. Results showed that HL children used less adequate referring exp...

The purpose of this study was to investigate receptive vocabulary achievement among French-English bilinguals in Canada. Standardized test scores of receptive vocabulary were measured in both languages from preschool, early-elementary, and late-elementary French-English bilingual children, and French-English bilingual adults. Mean vocabulary scores...

The goal of this study was to investigate whether individual difference factors influence the second language (L2) learning of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical development (TD) differently. The study focuses on tense inflection development in English L2 children. The roles of age of L2 acquisition, length o...

The objectives of this study were twofold: (1) Determine the English proficiency of English second-language learners (ELLs) at the end of preschool as referenced to monolingual norms, and in particular, to determine if they showed an asynchronous profile, that is, approached monolingual norms more closely for some linguistic sub-skills than others;...

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the English phonological skills of English language learners (ELLs) over 5 time points. Method: Sound class accuracy, whole-word accuracy, percentage of occurrence of phonological patterns, and sociolinguistic correlational analyses were investigated in 19 ELLs ranging in age from 5;0 (years;mont...

This study focuses on English onset cluster production in spontaneous speech samples of 10 children aged 5;04–6;09 from Chinese and Hindi/Punjabi first language (L1) backgrounds, each with less than a year of exposure to English. The results suggest commonalities between early second language (L2) learners and both monolingual and adult L2 learners...

Purpose: In this study, the authors sought to determine whether a combination of English-language measures and a parent questionnaire on first-language development could adequately discriminate between English-language learners (ELLs) with and without language impairment (LI) when children had diverse first-language backgrounds. Method: Particip...

ABSTRACT Acquisition of English grammatical morphology was examined in five internationally adopted (IA) children from China (aged 0;10-1;1 at adoption) during the first three years' exposure to English to determine whether acquisition patterns were characteristic of child second language (L2) learners or monolingual first language (L1) learners. R...

This study was designed to investigate the development of third‐person singular (3SG) –s in children who learn English as a second language (L2). Adopting the usage‐based perspective on the learning of inflection, we analyzed spontaneous speech samples collected from 15 English L2 children who were followed over a 2‐year period. Assessing the contr...

Purpose: This study investigated whether past tense use could differentiate children with language impairment (LI) from their typically developing (TD) peers when English is children's second language (L2) and whether L2 children's past tense profiles followed the predictions of Bybee's (2007) usage-based network model. Method: A group of L2 chi...

The aim of this study was to use crosslinguistic data from French‐English bilinguals to test two models of past tense acquisition: (a) single route (all past tense forms rely on morphophonological schemas) and (b) dual route (irregular forms are learned as words, regulars through rules). These models make similar predictions about English acquisiti...

In this study, the authors investigate the acquisition of the article system of English as a phenomenon at the interface between morphosyntax and semantics. L1 acquisition studies have found that children make mistakes in article use until they are at least four years old or possibly older. Also, adult L2 acquisition studies have reported that lear...

This study investigated how various child-internal and child-external factors predict English L2 children's acquisition outcomes for vocabulary size and accuracy with verb morphology. The children who participated (N=169) were between 4;10 and 7;0 years old (mean = 5;10), had between 3 to 62 months of exposure to English (mean = 20 months), and wer...

Liaison and elision in French are phonological phenomena that apply across word boundaries. French-speaking children make errors in contexts where liaison/elision typically occurs in adult speech. In this study, we asked if acquisition of French liaison/elision can be explained in a constructivist framework. We tested if children's liaison/elision...

This study investigated whether bilingual-monolingual differences would be apparent in school-age children's use and knowledge of English verb morphology and whether differences would be influenced by amount of exposure to English, complexity of the morphological structure, or the type of task given. French-English bilinguals (mean age = 6;10) were...

ABSTRACTBilingual and monolingual children's (mean age=4;10) elicited production of the past tense in both English and French was examined in order to test predictions from Usage-Based theory regarding the sensitivity of children's acquisition rates to input factors such as variation in exposure time and the type/token frequency of morphosyntactic...

Research at the interface of bilingual development and child language disorders has increased greatly in the past decade. The purpose of this article is to highlight the theoretical and clinical implications of this research. Studies examining the similarities in linguistic characteristics between typically developing sequential bilingual children...

The Keynote Article examined research situated at the interface of bilingualism and specific language impairment (SLI) primarily to evaluate theories of SLI and secondarily for clinical considerations. The purpose was not to argue for one theoretical perspective over another, but instead to demonstrate how they both need some refinements and extens...

Obtaining information on both languages of English language learners for assessment can be a challenge in a multilingual context. It is often difficult or impossible to observe a child's first language directly due to the absence of resources available in every language spoken. The objectives of this study were (1) to develop a parent questionnaire...

Crosslinguistic transfer in bilingual language acquisition has been widely reported in various linguistic domains (e.g., Döpke, 1998; Nicoladis, 1999; Paradis, 2001). In this study we examined structural overlap (Döpke, 2000; Müller and Hulk, 2001) and dominance (Yip and Matthews, 2000) as explanatory factors for crosslinguistic transfer in Persian...

The data for this study consisted of a longitudinal corpus of narra-tives from 17 English second language (L2) children, mean age of 5;4 years at the outset, with first languages (L1s) that do not have definite/indefinite articles (Chinese, Korean and Japanese) and L1s that do have article systems (Spanish, Romanian and Arabic). We examined these c...

This study reports on a comparison of the use and knowledge of tense-marking morphemes in English by first language (L1), second language (L2) and specifically language-impaired (SLI) children. The objective of our research was to ascertain whether the L2 children's tense acquisition patterns were similar or dissimilar to those of the L1 and SLI gr...

Initial Exposure to the Second LanguagePhonological Acquisition in the Second LanguageLexical Acquisition in the Second LanguageMorphosyntactic Acquisition in the Second LanguageChild Second Language Learners Compared with Monolingual Age PeersSources of Individual Differences in Child Second Language AcquisitionLanguage Shift and First Language Lo...

The English second language development of 19 children (mean age at outset = 5 years, 4 months) from various first language backgrounds was examined every 6 months for 2 years, using spontaneous language sampling, parental questionnaires, and a standardized receptive vocabulary test. Results showed that the children's mean mental age equivalency an...

Bilingualism is often considered an inappropriate developmental choice for children with specific language impairment (SLI) because, according to a widespread belief, these children's limited capacity for language would be overtaxed by learning two linguistic systems. However, there has not been adequate empirical investigation of SLI in bilingual...

Two-year-old bilingual children can show sensitivity to the language choice of their interlocutor, but do not necessarily achieve perfect separation by discourse context, e.g. speaking only French with a French interlocutor; dominance in one language is often cited as a reason for this. In this study we asked whether older bilingual preschoolers wo...

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In this study, we tested the predictions of 2 opposing perspectives on the nature of the deficit in specific language impairment (SLI): the domain-general, cognitive/ perceptual processing view and the domain-specific, linguistic representational view. Data consisted of spontaneous speech samples from French–English bilingual children with SLI; you...

This study was conducted to examine whether the expressive language characteristics of typically developing (TD) children learning English as a second language (ESL) have similarities to the characteristics of the English that is spoken by monolingual children with specific language impairment (SLI), and whether this could result in the erroneous a...

The purpose of this study was to assess whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) are a useful first language (L1) comparison group for second language (L2) children in order to determine whether target-deviant structures in interlanguage are developmental or due to transfer from the L1. Children with SLI could make a useful comparis...

This book dispels many myths about dual language development and answers key questions that might arise as you work with children and their parents. Student profiles, definitions of key terms, and "clinical implications" sections for selected chapters make this a valuable reference for in-practice SLPs and educators, an accessible resource for pare...

This study investigated whether crosslinguistic interference occurs in the domain of subject realization in Spanish in a bilingual acquisition context. We were also interested in exploring whether the source of the interference is due to child-internal crosslanguage contact between English and Spanish, as is commonly assumed, or due to the nature o...