Therapists’ views on working with bilingual Spanish–English speaking clients: A qualitative investigation.

Through semistructured interviews, language switching in therapy was examined with 9 bilingual Spanish and English therapists. Therapists were asked about how and when they switched from one language to another during treatment, as well as the ways in which their clients’ switched languages. After the use of consensual qualitative research methods (C. E. Hill et al., 2005; C. E. Hill, B. J. Thompson, & E. N. Williams, 1997), the results revealed that therapists used language switching as a mechanism to establish trust, bond with clients, and promote disclosure through the use of specific phrases or specific words; particularly, the use of Spanish idiomatic expressions (dichos) served to engage, redirect, and increase client self-understanding and awareness. Therapists reported that their clients switched from English to Spanish when recounting experiences that involved certain emotions (e.g., anger) and represented themselves differently depending on the language they were speaking. Therapists also reported that their clients switched from English to Spanish to improve communication and to connect with them. Future directions for research and implications for training and practice are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

法学双语课教学中度的把握

法学双语课教学中度的把握主要包括四个方面：课程设置的度、教材选取的度、课堂教学中双语使用的度和考试的度。只有把握好这几个度才有可能使得双语课教学不流于形式。     

Strategies and risks in psychotherapy with bilingual patients: the phenomenon of language independence

The presence of two separate languages, each with its own lexical, syntactic, semantic, and ideational components, can complicate psychotherapy with proficient bilingual patients. If only one language is used in therapy, some aspects of the patients emotional experience may be unavailable to treatment; if both languages are used, the patient may use language switching as a form of resistance to affectively charged material. The authors suggest that monolingual therapists should carefully assess the degree of language independence in bilinguals in order to minimize its impact on therapy. They conclude that study of bilingual patients may provide important insights into the nature of the therapeutic process.     

Parallel recovery in a bilingual aphasic: A neurolinguistic and fMRI study.

In bilingual aphasics, the neural correlates of rehabilitation benefits and their generalization across languages are still scarcely understood. The authors present the case of a highly proficient bilingual woman (Flemish, L1/Italian, L2) with chronic aphasia who, in the presence of the same pattern of impairment in both languages, showed parallel recovery in both languages after long-term rehabilitation therapy in L2. The authors postulated that this recovery was due to the engagement of the same neural substrates. To confirm this the authors used an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm to explore cortical activation during an overt picture naming task, performed in both Flemish and Italian once before and once after 2 weeks of training in L2. Behaviorally, the patient showed complete recovery of both languages. The fMRI results indicated that the same cerebral regions were recruited for both languages before and after training. Increasing activations were observed perilesionally and in homologous contralesional areas. Our data, in agreement with previous results of fMRI studies in healthy bilinguals, indicate a promising direction for future research on the neural mechanisms associated with recovery in bilingual aphasics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive benefits and costs of bilingualism in elementary school students: The case of mathematical word problems.

Previous research has emphasized the importance of language for learning mathematics. This is especially true when mathematical problems have to be extracted from a meaningful context, as in arithmetic word problems. Bilingual learners with a low command of the instructional language thus may face challenges when dealing with mathematical concepts. At the same time, speaking two languages can be associated with cognitive benefits with regard to attentional control processes, although such benefits have only been found in highly proficient bilinguals. In the present study, we attempted to disentangle the effects of bilingual proficiency on mathematical problem solving in Turkish–German bilingual elementary school students. We examined whether the positive cognitive effects of bilingualism could be found not only in highly proficient bilinguals but also in students with an immigrant background and a low command of the instructional or native language. Our findings emphasize the importance of language proficiency for mathematics problem solving, as shown by the predictive value of students' proficiency in the language of testing (German/Turkish) for their performance on mathematical word problems. No additional effect of the language of instruction (German) was found for problem solving in the bilingual students' native language (Turkish). Furthermore, bilinguals gained scores comparable to those of their monolingual peers on word problems that required attentional control skills although performing significantly below their monolingual classmates on ordinary word problems, suggesting that bilinguals have an advantage when it comes to attentional control. Finally, bilingual students with a relatively high command of the instructional language performed better on word problems presented in German than on those presented in Turkish, thus facing cognitive costs when transferring knowledge from one language to the other. Implications of our findings for bilingual education are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experiences of Spanish/English bilingual supervisees.

Supervising mental health services conducted in a language that the supervisor does not speak can present a conundrum for both supervisors and supervisees, especially when the supervisee is the only person in the clinic who speaks the language of the client. This qualitative study explored Spanish-language services supervision experiences of bilingual graduate students and professionals during their graduate training. The participants reported feeling burdened and stressed by additional responsibilities. They had little training or supervision to help them develop the language skills necessary to provide competent services in Spanish, so they relied on peer support and networking to cope with the many challenges they faced. The participants appreciated having supervisors who were culturally competent and open to the clients’ cultural values. Training programs and supervisors need to be aware of the factors contributing to this stress and examine procedures and practices that may exacerbate or minimize the burdens. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speech perception, metalinguistic awareness, reading, and vocabulary in Chinese–English bilingual children.

In this study, we examined the intercorrelations among speech perception, metalinguistic (i.e., phonological and morphological) awareness, word reading, and vocabulary in a 1st language (L1) and a 2nd language (L2). Results from 3 age groups of Chinese–English bilingual children showed that speech perception was more predictive of reading and vocabulary in the L1 than L2. While morphological awareness uniquely predicted reading and vocabulary in both languages, phonological awareness played such a role after we controlled for morphological awareness only in the L2, which was alphabetic. L1 speech perception and metalinguistic awareness predicted L2 word reading but not vocabulary, after we controlled for the corresponding L2 variables. Hence, there are both similarities and differences between the 2 languages in how the constructs are related. The differences are attributable to variations in language properties and learning contexts. Implications of the present results for an effective L2 learning program are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of bilingualism and biliteracy on children's emerging concepts of print.

Three groups of 4- and 5-year-old children were examined for their concepts of how print refers to language. All of the children could identify printed letters and their sounds but not read alone. The groups studied were monolingual speakers of English, bilingual speakers of French and English, and bilingual speakers of Chinese (Mandarin) and English. Bilingual children were equally proficient in both languages and were familiar with print and storybooks in both languages. The tasks assessed children's understanding of the general correspondence between print and language in which the printed form represents a word and the specific correspondence between a constituent of print and one of language that determines representation in a given writing system. The general correspondence relation applies to all writing systems, but the specific correspondence relation changes for different kinds of writing systems. Bilingual children understood better than monolingual children the general symbolic representation of print. The older Chinese-English bilingual children also showed advanced understanding of the specific correspondence relations in English print. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Langues de présentation des consignes et performances motrices chez des bilingues fran?ais/créole aux Antilles fran?aises.

In this study, I examine whether the language used for instructions influences motor performance among bilingual children in a learning situation. Eighty bilingual French/Creole children (age means 10.4) were distributed into two experimental groups to learn how to perform a motor task. One group received instructions in French and the other one in Creole. The data suggest that the language of presentation affects the execution of a motor task. Both groups had the same performance level at the beginning of the experiment. However, the group taught in Creole obtained better performances than the group taught in French at the end of the learning situation. The results are discussed in terms of their implications to physical education and motor rehabilitation of bilinguals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multilingualism and cognitive state in the oldest old.

In this study, the authors examined whether the number of languages a person speaks predicts performance on 2 cognitive-screening tests. Data were drawn from a representative sample of the oldest Israeli Jewish population (N = 814, M age = 83.0 years; SD = 5.4) that was interviewed first in 1989 and then twice more within the following 12 years. Cognitive state differed significantly among groups of self-reported bilingual, trilingual, and multilingual individuals at each of the 3 interview waves. Regression analyses showed that the number of languages spoken contributed to the prediction of cognitive test scores beyond the effect of other demographic variables, such as age, gender, place of birth, age at immigration, or education. Multilingualism was also found to be a significant predictor of cognitive state in a group of individuals who acquired no formal education at all. Those who reported being most fluent in a language other than their mother tongue scored higher on average than did those whose mother tongue was their best language, but the effect of number of languages on cognitive state was significant in both groups, with no significant interaction. Results are discussed in the context of theories of cognitive reserve. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gesture and early bilingual development.

The relationship between speech and gestural proficiency was investigated longitudinally (from 2 years to 3 years 6 months, at 6-month intervals) in 5 French-English bilingual boys with varying proficiency in their 2 languages. Because of their different levels of proficiency in the 2 languages at the same age, these children's data were used to examine the relative contribution of language and cognitive development to gestural development. In terms of rate of gesture production, rate of gesture production with speech, and meaning of gesture and speech, the children used gestures much like adults from 2 years on. In contrast, the use of iconic and beat gestures showed differential development in the children's 2 languages as a function of mean length of utterance. These data suggest that the development of these kinds of gestures may be more closely linked to language development than other kinds (such as points). Reasons why this might be so are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A study of bilingual Galician-Castillian aphasic patients

INTRODUCTION: Aphasia in bilingual persons has some striking peculiarities. Most studies have been carried out in mono-lingual societies, where the second language has usually been learnt after immigration. In Galicia, linguistic closeness and simultaneous learning of Galician and Castilian languages permits the testing of neuropsychological theories conceived in other circumstances. OBJECTIVE: In aphasic bilingual Galician-Castilian patients we studied how this affected denomination, designation and translation, different modes of recovery, variables associated with differential affectation, the presence and influence of specific phenomena of aphasia in bilingual persons on changes in dominance and mixing of the languages. Material and methods. We selected 49 patients, 29 men and 20 women aged between 32 and 85 years old. We analyzed the variables associated with differential affectation: types of aphasia, size and site of the lesion, aetiology, age, educational level, and the presence and influence of phenomena specific to aphasia in bilingual persons. RESULTS: The test most affected was translation, to a lesser extent denomination, and finally designation. Capacity for recovery is greater in the dominant language. Translation recovers better than denomination and this better than designation. We found no changes in dominance, no selective loss of either language but have seen some interference in the non-dominant language. CONCLUSIONS: The two languages are seen to be recovered equally, as were other languages previously studied in aphasiology.     

Adequacy of a translation of the MMPI into American Sign Language for use with deaf individuals: Linguistic equivalency issues.

Translated the MMPI into American Sign Language (ASL) via the back-translation procedure and recorded it on videotape to determine the linguistic equivalency of a sign language translation of a psychological test for use with deaf individuals. The bilingual retest technique was conducted whereby both forms of the instrument were administered to 28 ASL-English bilingual deaf Ss. Due to the advent of the MMPI-2 during the conduct of this study, a new set of T scores was calculated from the present MMPI data to compare the effect of shifting to the MMPI-2 norms. The results demonstrate adequate linguistic equivalencies of the ASL MMPI items and underscore the potential utility and practicality of future ASL translations of psychological tests for use with deaf individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Should I stay or should I switch? A cost–benefit analysis of voluntary language switching in young and aging bilinguals.

Bilinguals spontaneously switch languages in conversation even though laboratory studies reveal robust cued language switching costs. The authors investigated how voluntary-switching costs might differ when switches are voluntary. Younger (Experiments 1–2) and older (Experiment 3) Spanish–English bilinguals named pictures in 3 conditions: (a) dominant-language only, (b) nondominant-language only, and (c) using “whatever language comes to mind” (in Experiment 2, “using each language about half the time”). Most bilinguals, particularly balanced bilinguals, voluntarily mixed languages even though switching was costly. Unlike with cued switching, voluntary switching sometimes facilitated responses, switch costs were not greater for the dominant language, and age effects on language mixing and switching were limited. This suggests that the freedom to mix languages voluntarily allows unbalanced and older bilinguals to function more like balanced and younger bilinguals. Voluntary switch costs reveal an expanded role for inhibitory control in bilingual language production and imply a mandatory separation by language in bilingual lexical selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive–linguistic foundations of early spelling development in bilinguals.

Developing spelling skills in English is a particularly demanding task for Chinese speakers because, unlike many other bilinguals learning English as a second language, they must learn two languages with different orthography as well as phonology. To disentangle socioeconomic and pedagogical factors from the underlying cognitive–linguistic processes that predict the development of spelling, we used a 6-month longitudinal design and compared children with English as their first language (English-L1; n = 50) and children with Mandarin as their first language (Mandarin-L1; n = 50) from the same kindergarten. Both groups were tested on parallel versions of English and Mandarin tasks as predictors at Time 1, and their spelling sophistication scores were then computed from a 52-item experimental task administered at Time 2. After we controlled for nonverbal IQ, age, vocabulary, and spelling achievement on Wide Range Achievement Test 4 at Time 1, regression analyses showed that phoneme awareness was the strongest predictor of spelling sophistication for English-L1 children, but syllable awareness and letter-sound knowledge were also important for Mandarin-L1 children. The implications of these differences in the cognitive–linguistic processing of bilingual children learning two dissimilar languages are briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of language-acquisition contexts on bilingualism.

"Bilinguals were classified as having learned their two languages in either separated or fused contexts… . It was found that experience in separated contexts comparatively increases the associative independence of translated equivalents in the bilingual's two languages. If the bilingual has learned his two languages in culturally distinctive contexts, the semantic differences between translated equivalents is comparatively increased. There was no difference found in faculty to switch from one language to the other than can be attributed to contextual influences." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1GH39L. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative priming in bilinguals: Some limits of interlingual facilitation effects.

Examined how the prior visual presentation of a word from one of a bilingual S's languages can facilitate the identification of an associated word from the other language. Results from performance on lexical decision tasks with 72 Ss show a different pattern of effects for intra- and interlingual conditions at 2 different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). At a short SOA, no facilitation effect was observed between associated words from different languages. At a long SOA, facilitation was observed for both between- and within-language conditions, but the between-language effect was weaker. Results do not suggest direct interlingual links in the bilingual lexicon. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical selection in bilingual speech production does not involve language suppression.

The "hard problem" in bilingual lexical access arises when translation-equivalent lexical representations are activated to roughly equal levels and, thus, compete equally for lexical selection. The language suppression hypothesis (D. W. Green, 1998) solves this hard problem through the suppression of lexical representations in the nontarget language. Following from this proposal is the prediction that lexical selection should take longer on a language switch trial because the to-be-selected representation was just suppressed on the previous trial. Inconsistent with this prediction, participants took no longer to name pictures in their dominant language on language switch trials than they did on nonswitch trials. These findings indicate that nontarget lexical representations are not suppressed. The authors suggest that these results undermine the viability of the language suppression hypothesis as a possible solution to the hard problem in bilingual lexical access. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bilingual phonological awareness: Multilevel construct validation among Spanish-speaking kindergarteners in transitional bilingual education classrooms.

The construct validity of English and Spanish phonological awareness (PA) tasks was examined with a sample of 812 kindergarten children from 71 transitional bilingual education program classrooms located in 3 different types of geographic regions in California and Texas. Tasks of PA, including blending nonwords, segmenting words, and phoneme elision, were measured in Spanish and in English and analyzed via multilevel confirmatory factor analysis at the task level. Results showed that the PA tasks defined a unitary construct at both the student and classroom levels in each language. English and Spanish PA factors were related to each other (.93 and .83 at the student and classroom levels, respectively) as well as to word reading, both within languages (correlations estimated between .74 and .93) and across languages (correlations estimated between .47 and .79). Although the PA constructs were statistically separable in each language, the high correlation between Spanish and English PA indicates considerable overlap in these abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognate facilitation effect: Implications for models of lexical access.

Do nonselected lexical nodes activate their phonological information? Catalan-Spanish bilinguals were asked to name (a) pictures whose names are cognates, in the 2 languages (words that are phonologically similar in the 2 languages) and (b) pictures whose names are noncognates in the 2 languages. If nonselected lexical nodes are phonologically encoded, naming latencies should be shorter for cognate words, and because the cognate status of words is only meaningful for bilingual speakers, this difference should disappear when testing monolingual speakers. The results of Experiment 1 fully supported these predictions. In Experiment 2, the difference between cognate and noncognate words was larger when naming in the nondominant language than when naming in the dominant language. The results of the 2 experiments are interpreted as providing support to cascaded activation models of lexical access. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)