Kahin UROPPoster · Title: Kahin UROPPoster Created Date: 3/9/2016 9:36:34 PM

Determiningthelinguisticbackgroundofparticipantsisaveryimportantstepinlanguageresearch.DevelopedbyBosch&Sebastián-Gallés (2001),theLanguageExposureQuestionnaire(LEQ)determinesthepercentageofinputachildisexposedtoperlanguage.Thisinterview-stylequestionnaireindirectlymeasuresthelanguageexposureofinfantsthroughparentalestimatesandisfrequentlyusedinbilingualismresearch(Byers-Heinlein,2015).However,theseparentalreportscanbebiasedandcaninaccuratelydepictlanguageuseinbilingualhouseholds.Newtechnologynowallowsforamoredirectmeasureofachild'slanguageenvironment.

TheLanguageEnvironmentAnalysis(LENA)systemisadigitallanguageprocessorthatrecordsandanalyzesthechild’saudioenvironment.TheLENAsystemhasbeenusedinresearchtomeasurethespeechstyleofinputbuthasyettobeusedasameasureoflanguageexposure(Weisleder &Fernald,2013;Ramírez-Esparzaetal.,2014).

ThisstudyaimstocomparetheestimatedpercentagesofexposureobtainedusingtheLEQandusingtheLENAsystem.Theestimatesarehypothesizedtodifferandsucharesultmayleadustoquestionthevalidityofusingindirectmeasurestoevaluatelanguageexposure.

Introduction

Methods

TwoFrench-Englishbilingualinfantsweretestedandforeachparticipant,fourestimatesofglobalexposureweredetermined.ParentsfilledouttheLEQandgaveaglobalestimateofthepercentageofFrenchandEnglishthattheirinfantisexposedto.AnotherestimatefromtheLEQwascalculatedusingtheweeklyexposureestimates.

ParentswerethengiventheLENAsystemandrecorded8hoursontwotypicaldaysathome.Thetotaladultwordcount(AWC)andmeaningfulspeechtime(MST)wereautomaticallycalculatedbytheLENAanalysissoftware.Therecordingswerecodedper5-minuteblockasEnglishinput,Frenchinput,oramixofboth.Thecodingwasusedtodeterminethepercentageofadultwordsandmeaningfulspeechheardineachlanguage.

TheLENAsoftwareestimatedthatintotal,Participant1heard15,542adultwordsand1hour46minutesofmeaningfulspeechperday(1day=8hours).Thecodingofthe5-minuteblocksshowedthatoutofallmeaningfulspeechandwordsheardbyParticipant1,16%ofthespeechwasFrench.Thiscomparestoaparentalestimateof40%FrenchintheLEQ.

ThesepreliminaryfindingswereobtainedfromonlytwoparticipantssodefinitiveconclusionsontheefficacyoftheLEQasameasureoflanguageexposurecannotbemade.Also,bothparticipantswereEnglish-dominantsofurtherresearchmustincludebalancedandFrench-dominantbilingualinfantsintheanalysis.

TheresultsfounddoseemtoindicatethatadiscrepancydoesexistbetweenparentalestimatesandestimatesderivedfromtheLENArecordings,especiallyforParticipant1.Theparentalestimateof40%FrenchwascalculatedbytheLENAsystemtobe16%French.Also,inthe5-minuteaudioblockscodedasmixed,thereoftenwasagreaterpercentageofEnglishspokenthanFrench,whichmaymeananevensmalleramountofFrenchexposure.Theoverestimationfoundintheparentalreportsmayonlybeapplicabletotheminoritylanguagebutmoreresearchisnecessarytodeterminethis.

Anotherinterestingfindingishowtheamountofadultwordsheardrelatestotheamountofmeaningfulspeechheard.Participant1heardalmosttwiceasmanywordsasParticipant2heard.However,theamountofmeaningfulspeechheardbyeachinfantwassimilar.AsshowninRamírez-Esparzaetal.,thequalityofspeechchildrenhearismoreimportantthanthesheerquantity(2014).

Asthisresearchfurtherdevelops,theLEQestimatesmaybefoundtobeaninaccuratemeasureofexposureforbilingualinfants.Thismayleadresearcherstoquestionthevalidityofpaststudiesthatusedindirectmeasurestocorrelatelanguageexposurewithothervariables,suchasvocabularysizeandlexicalprocessingefficiency.

ConclusionResults

Bosch,L.,&Sebastián-Gallés,N.(2001).Evidenceofearlylanguagediscriminationabilitiesininfantsfrombilingualenvironments. Infancy, 2(1),29-49.Byers-Heinlein,K.(2015).Methodsofstudyinginfantbilingualism.InJ.W.Schwieter (Ed.), TheCambridgehandbookofbilingual processing (pp.133-154)Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2015.Ramírez-Esparza,N.,García-Sierra,A.,&Kuhl,P.K.(2014).Lookwho'stalking:Speechstyleandsocialcontextinlanguageinputtoinfantsarelinkedtoconcurrentandfuturespeechdevelopment. DevelopmentalScience, 17(6),880-891.Weisleder,A.,&Fernald,A.(2013).Talkingtochildrenmatters. Psychological Science, 24(11),2143-2152.

57.58 60 84.46 83.7542.42 40 15.54 16.250

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LEQ GEP LENA(AWC) LENA(MST)

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Participant1- Bilingualpercentagesofexposure

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71.22 70 82.87 82.6128.78 30 17.13 17.390

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LEQ GEP LENA(AWC) LENA(MST)

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Figure2.Globalpercentagesofexposureforparticipant1.

Figure1.Compositereportofaudioanalysis inLENAsoftware.

ThisresearchwasfundedbyaSSHRCgrantawardedtoC.T.F.IwouldliketothankDr.Fennellforsupervisingthisresearchproject,StéphanieMonetteforhelpwithdatacollectionandstatisticalanalysis,allparticipantsforprovidingdata,andtheOfficeofUndergraduateResearchforprovidingopportunitiestoconductresearchattheundergraduatelevel.

References

LENA versus LEQ: Measuring bilingual infants’ language exposureZeinab Kahin, Stéphanie Monette, Dr. Christopher Fennell

Language Development Lab, University of Ottawa

Participant2heardatotalof8172adultwordsand1hour21minutesofmeaningfulspeechperday.OutofallmeaningfulspeechandwordsheardbyParticipant2,17%ofthespeechwasFrench.Thiscomparestoaparentalestimateof30%FrenchintheLEQ.

Figure3.Globalpercentagesofexposureforparticipant2.

NostatisticalanalysestocorrelatetheLEQandLENAestimatescouldbeconductedduetothelownumberofparticipants.ThecorrelationbetweenAWCsandMSTs,however,wasanalyzedperparticipant,perlanguage,andglobally.Overall,strongpositivecorrelationsbetweenthetwovariableswerefound,indicatingthatastotaladultwordcountincreases,totalmeaningfulspeechincreasesandviceversa.

Globally Participant1 Participant2 English French

r .878 .917 .756 .876 .868

Table1.CorrelationsbetweenAWCsandMSTs(p≤ .001).

Acknowledgments

ContactInformation:zkahi029@uottawa.ca