Multilingualism and Development

Question 1

What is the Piaget (general stage) view?

Answer 1

Cognitive development is broad, need to go step by step and rigid
- Individual exploration and discovery

Question 2

What is the modern (domain specificity) view?

Answer 2

Expertise in one area allows for higher-level functioning
- Guided learning through social interaction (not just in the head)

Question 3

What is cognition determined by?

Answer 3

The environment (family, school, community)

Question 4

What is unique about the Moken Indigenous Tribe children?

Answer 4

• Live predominantly in water
• Their pupils can automatically adjust underwater (unlike non-Moken children)

Question 5

What is unique about language in Canada vs USA?

Answer 5

Canada:
- Federally bilingual
- Mostly multilingual and partially multiliterate
USA:
- No federal official language
- Multilingual but not multiliterate

Question 6

When did multilingual research start?

Answer 6

100 years ago

Question 7

What is the cascading influence of the environment surrounding a child?

Answer 7

Chronosystem, macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, mirosystem

Question 8

What influences parents’ behavior?

Answer 8

Social contexts -> parents’ attitude -> parents’ behavior

Question 9

What does more exposure to multilingualism do?

Answer 9

Make parents more likely to be open to multilingualism for their children
- Exposure is important

Question 10

Why is reading lower as an activity of heritage language (in the states)?

Answer 10

Lack of resources in the heritage language and parents don’t know how to read sometimes

Question 11

What is developmental and learning outcomes associated with?

Answer 11

Language variations in the environment

Question 12

What was the results of comparing bilingual and monolingual children shifting to preschool?

Answer 12

• Children who only knew English -> Only did well in English
• Children who knew Spanish -> did well in both languages

Question 13

Which group of children did better at phonetic discrimination stimuli in the study from home -> preschool?

Answer 13

The multilingual children

Question 14

What was the result of studying brain networks while watching a science lecture?

Answer 14

More bilateral activity in multilingual children in multiple different areas

Question 15

What does cognitive plasticity reflect?

Answer 15

Adapting to environment

Question 16

What is functional neural plasticity associated with?

Answer 16

Multilingualism in a learning context