Language acquisition--Parent participation.

Research has demonstrated that higher levels of parent language use is
correlated with later language use and intellectual development of their children.
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display deficits in social and
communication skills. They also demonstrate repetitive and restrictive behaviors or
interests. These behavioral deficits and excesses may contribute negatively to
language development, as well as parent and child social interactions, and
communication exchanges. The current study used a nonconcurrent multiple-baseline
design to evaluate the effectiveness of behavior skills training (BST) and on-going
graphical and verbal feedback on increasing parent language use and child words and
utterances. Results of this study demonstrated that BST with on-going feedback was
effective in increasing parent language use and child words and utterances above baseline levels for all four parent-child dyads. The dissertation concludes with
recommendations for future research.

In order to explain the development of English and Spanish skills in children from Spanish-speaking homes in the United States, it is necessary to identify their sources of language exposure. Most research to date has focused on home language use. The aim of this study is to identify sources of English and Spanish exposure outside the home that bilingual children experience between the ages of 2 and 5 years. The present study focuses on 3 potential sources: grandparents, extracurricular activities, and early childcare and education settings. We ask how much English and Spanish exposure children receive, how that changes from 2.5 to 5 years, and whether family variables influence those changes. Participants were 149 children from Spanish-speaking homes in southeastern Florida, with at least one parent an immigrant from a Spanish-speaking country. Measured out-of-home sources of input included hours per of week of English and Spanish from a Grandparent, during Extracurricular Activities, and during Preschool at 30, 36, 42, 48, and 60 months. Parents’ Native Language Background groups were either both native Spanish-speaking or one native, Spanish-speaking and one native, English-speaking. Maternal Education was treated as a dichotomous variable: mothers whose highest level of education in English is less than a four-year college degree and mothers whose highest level of education in English is equivalent to or greater than a four-year college degree. Child Birth Order was also treated as a dichotomous variable: only children and first-born children or later born children. Results revealed that for these children from Spanish-speaking homes, Grandparents are primarily a source of heritage-language (Spanish) input and Extracurricular Activities and Preschool are primarily a source of societal-language (English) input. Findings suggest English exposure from out-of-home sources increases over time possibly at the expense of Spanish exposure. Parents’ Native Language Backgrounds and Maternal Education influenced children’s exposure to both languages from these outside sources of input; Child Birth Order did not. Implications for future research and practical application are discussed.

Previous studies have found that bilingual children’s vocabulary development
benefits more from child-directed speech from native speakers than child-directed speech
from nonnative speakers. The current study compared the native English child-directed
speech of 20 English monolingual mothers, the nonnative English child-directed speech
of 20 Spanish-English bilingual mothers, and the native Spanish child-directed speech of
the same bilingual mothers in terms of three aspects of input previously associated with
children’s language development: data-providing properties, topic contingency, and
speech function. There were significant differences between native English and nonnative
English child-directed speech, and between nonnative English and native Spanish. The
results suggest two sources of influence shaping child-directed speech: quality
differences related to native speaker status and cultural factors primed by the language
being spoken.