Language Maintenance and Loss in Preschool-Age Children of Mexican ImmigrantsLongitudinal Study

Communication Disorders Quarterly 28:1 • pp. 4–17

Language Maintenance and Loss in Preschool-Age Children of

Mexican Immigrants:Longitudinal Study

Mark M. GuibersonUniversity of Northern Colorado

Karen C. BarrettColorado State University

Elizabeth G. Jancosek and Christine Yoshinaga ItanoUniversity of Colorado–Boulder

In this study, the authors plotted the Spanish language us-age of 10 preschool-age children over the course of 3 yearsand assigned them to one of two groups: language mainte-nance and language loss. The authors then compared thegroups’ scores on structured tasks, language behaviors, andlanguage usage/exposure variables. They found that chil-dren in the language loss group presented with more gram-matical errors, whereas the language maintenance groupperformed better on Spanish vocabulary and language tasks.No specific variable was predictive of maintenance or loss,but the children from the language loss group began to usemore English with family members or peers.

The number of preschool-age children from linguisti-cally diverse backgrounds has drastically increased in theUnited States over the past decade. Enrollment of lin-guistically diverse children in Head Start, for example, rosefrom approximately 21% in 1993 to approximately 24%in 1999, with the largest growth rate seen in Spanish-speaking households, increasing from 17.5% to more than20% (Administration for Children and Families, 2000).Currently, more than 2 million preschool-age children ofHispanic/Latino descent reside in the United States (U.S.Census Bureau, 2005). Because of this demographic trend,speech–language pathologists (SLPs) need to be informedabout bilingual language development in young children.This issue is quite complex, however, because linguistic

differences may mask, mimic, or be confused for symp-toms or characteristics of a specific disorder (Anderson,2004; Schiff-Myers, 1992; Wong Fillmore, 1991). TheAmerican Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2004)recognizes this difficulty and has provided guidelinesstating that to provide ethical and appropriate services,professionals must possess knowledge about and be re-sponsive to culturally and linguistically diverse popula-tions. Unfortunately, most SLPs are not prepared to workwith linguistically diverse children (Hammer, Detwiler,Detwiler, Blood, & Qualls, 2004; Kohnert, Kennedy,Glaze, Kan, & Carney, 2003; Papoutsis Kritikos, 2003;Roseberry-McKibbin, Brice, & O’Hanlon, 2005). In nu-merous surveys, SLPs have reported a lack of confidenceor efficacy in assessing and treating children from cul-turally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Many ofthese surveys indicate that the causes probably include alack of appropriate training and insufficient knowledgeof cultural and linguistic differences.

Perhaps what makes assessing and working withchildren from culturally and linguistically diverse back-grounds perplexing to many SLPs is the fact that thesechildren present with a wide range of language profi-ciencies that are dynamic and that change over time(Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004; Silva-Corvalan, 1991;Valdes & Figueroa, 1994). Understanding language de-velopment in these populations requires knowledge ofboth development in other languages and bilingual ac-

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quisition. Simultaneous acquisition occurs when a childis exposed to both languages simultaneously from birthor a very early age; sequential acquisition occurs when achild becomes exposed to and begins to learn the secondlanguage (L2) after developing his or her primary lan-guage (L1; Arnberg, 1987; Tabors, 1997). This distinc-tion between sequential and simultaneous acquisition isimportant because each type of bilingualism results inslightly different developmental patterns (Arnberg, 1987;Cook, 1997; Harley & Wang, 1997; Tabors, 1997). Forexample, simultaneous bilingual children may presentwith language skills that are comparable across lan-guages, whereas sequential bilingual children will pro-ceed through a series of predictable stages (for reviews,see Genesee et al., 2004; Krashen, 1982; Tabors, 1997).At the same time, educators need to understand the ef-fects of other important variables, including time of L2exposure and context and quality of exposure to L1 andL2 (Patterson & Pearson, 2004). These—and other—variables influence language maintenance or languageloss.

LANGUAGE LOSS AND LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE

First, what is language loss? It is a process in which an in-dividual’s L1 abilities are reduced or impeded fromdeveloping while his or her L2 skills become more es-tablished (Anderson, 2004; Fase, Jaspaert, & Kroon, 1992;Schiff-Myers, 1992; Sharwood Smith & Van Buren, 1991).In adults, in whom L1 abilities would otherwise be sta-ble, loss manifests as decreases in the use of L1 vocabu-lary and fluency, and/or the transfer of L2 rules to L1(Genesee et al., 2004). In children, who are in the processof acquiring language proficiency, language loss mani-fests as a failure to gain proficiency in L1 as expected(Sharwood Smith & van Buren, 1991). Such a pattern isthought to occur in young children when they begin toacquire a second language before they have had theopportunity to master or fully develop their first lan-guage (Cummins, 1979; Schiff-Meyers, 1992; Tabors, 1997;Wong Fillmore, 1991). A number of language usage andexposure variables have been associated with languageloss, including preschool enrollment (Wong Fillmore,1991); age of second language exposure (Hakuta & D’An-drea, 1992); and language usage with siblings, peers, andfamily members (for a review, see Anderson, 2004).

In contrast, language maintenance is a process inwhich there is continuous L1 growth or maintained L1proficiency and usage (Fase et al., 1992). Language main-tenance results in L1 proficiency and includes the con-

tinued use of L1 (Fase et al., 1992; Hakuta & D’Andrea,1992; Tannenbaum, 2003). Moreover, for true languagemaintenance to occur, children from linguistically di-verse backgrounds must learn more than the householdvernacular of their L1; they also need to learn the cogni-tive academic language that is typically fostered througheducational experiences (Cummins, 1994; Echevarria &Graves, 1998; Schiff-Myers, 1992). As children from lin-guistically diverse backgrounds in the United States beginelementary school, however, they are exposed primarilyto L2 (English) in their instructional settings. Thus, inmost cases, as children progress through formal school-ing in their L2, they are less likely to maintain their L1unless they are consistently exposed to their L1 throughtheir family or the community. Children who are af-forded bilingual educational experiences are the excep-tion; for these children, development in both L2 and L1is supported. Some researchers have found that enroll-ment in bilingual preschool programs supports L1 (aswell as L2) development (Winsler, Diaz, Espinoza, & Rod-riguez, 1999). Also, maintained parental usage of L1 hasbeen linked to continued L1 development in children(Hakuta & D’Andrea, 1992; Hurtado & Vega, 2004).

CODE-SWITCHING AND CODE-MIXING

Code-switching, the alternate usage of languages betweensentences or phrases, and code-mixing, the alternate us-age of languages within a single sentence, are commonbilingual behaviors. Despite the fact that most bilin-gual children code-mix, this bilingual behavior is oftena source of concern and misunderstanding (Genesee etal., 2004). Code-switching and code-mixing have beenconsidered by some researchers as indicators of lan-guage deficiency, inadequacy, or deviancy (Cheng & But-ler, 1989; Fernandez, 1990; Poplack, 1980). Conversely,other researchers have described these behaviors as typ-ical, common, and occurring at all levels of languageproficiency (Ardila, 2005; Backus, 1999; Brice & Ander-son, 1999; Genesee et al., 2004; Patterson, 1999; Toribio,2004).

Several researchers have documented code-switchingand code-mixing behaviors in young children throughcase studies or studies of small groups of children. In alongitudinal case study, Kaufman and Aronoff (1991)followed a preschool-age sequential bilingual child whosefirst language was Hebrew. After being exposed to Eng-lish, the child began to code-mix and eventually becameunwilling to speak Hebrew. As the child’s code-mixingbehaviors increased, so did her error patterns in L1. Thischild’s profile might lead one to believe that increased

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6 Communication Disorders Quarterly • vol. 28, no. 1 / Fall 2006

code-mixing is related to language loss; however, there islittle evidence to support this claim. In a similar study,Brice and Anderson (1999) documented code-mixingbehaviors in a Spanish-speaking sequential bilingual childof preschool age and found that roughly 10% of thechild’s utterances involved code-mixing over the courseof the study. In this case, however, code-mixing was notrelated to language loss. In a study of 10 typically devel-oping children from Spanish-speaking families, Rod-riguez, Hammer, Miccio, and Aragon (2005) documentedcode-mixing and code-switching behaviors after 1 and2 years of Head Start preschool programming. Usinglanguage samples, the authors found that the childrenbegan to code-switch and code-mix more when speak-ing Spanish than when speaking English. The authorsbelieved that this behavior might have reflected the chil-dren’s growing competency in English; however, no ex-ploration of the possibility that children might also havebeen demonstrating L1 loss was made. Other researchersstudying young French/English bilinguals have found thatby 26 months of age or earlier, children know when touse L1 or L2 with monolingual adults (Genesee, Boivin,& Nicoladis, 1996; Genesee, Nicoladis, & Paradis, 1995).Thus, one might expect that children would use L1 onlyand would not code-mix when interacting with mono-lingual speakers, such as playing with a monolingual par-ent at home (Grosjean, 1998). More research describingthe relationship between code-mixing and L1 mainte-nance or loss is needed.

ERROR PATTERNS AND GENERAL TERM USAGE

Researchers have described two other language behav-iors in children who are experiencing language loss:increased error patterns (Anderson 1999a; 1999b;Gutiérrez-Clellen, Restrepo, Bedore, Peña, & Anderson,2000) and use of general terms/nondescriptive words(Anderson 1999a, 1999b). Although these language be-haviors have not received as much attention as code-mixing, they may provide insight into languagemaintenance and loss in young children who are se-quential bilingual.

For a number of years, grammatical errors havebeen of interest to researchers studying specific lan-guage impairments (SLI) in Spanish-speaking children(for a review, see Restrepo & Gutiérrez-Clellen, 2004).In a study of more than 60 children, Restrepo (1998)found that noun phrase errors were more common inSpanish-speaking children with SLI. Still, only a fewstudies have documented error patterns in typically de-

veloping children who have experienced L1 loss. In acase study, Anderson (1999a), found that L1 grammati-cal errors (e.g., errors in verb usage; errors involving cli-tics, articles, and prepositions) were more frequent asthe child became more proficient in her L2. However,the language behaviors seen in children who are experi-encing language loss are not necessarily uniform. An-derson followed two bilingual children experiencing L1loss (1999b) and found that a specific error pattern, suchas gender agreement, was observed in only one of thechildren studied. Anderson (1999a) also documenteddecreases in lexicon as the children lost vocabulary intheir L1 and began to increase their usage of generalterms/nondescriptive words, such as éso, ésa, esto, esta,este, aquí, acá allá, and allí. None of the other studiesthat we reviewed documented error patterns and the useof general terms/nondescriptive words in successive bi-lingual children or related these behaviors to languagemaintenance or loss.

Unfortunately, longitudinal studies that describe de-velopment in language minorities are lacking (Artiles,Rueda, Salazar, & Higareda, 2005); thus, knowledge aboutthe trajectories of L1 language maintenance and languageloss is limited. As the number of young Spanish-speakingchildren continues to rise in this country, it is becomingincreasingly important to study their language devel-opment. This article will describe the Spanish languagetrajectories of 10 preschool-age, emergent sequentialbilingual children over the course of 3 years. In addi-tion, we will explore the following questions:

• How do language maintenance or loss tra-jectories compare to scores obtained onstructured language tasks?

• What child language behaviors are associ-ated with language maintenance or loss?

• What language usage and exposure vari-ables are associated with language mainte-nance or loss?

METHOD

Participants

The study participants were 10 children (6 girls, 4 boys)of Mexican immigrant parents whom research assis-tants recruited at a Colorado metro-area health-carecenter that provided services in Spanish. Table 1 pre-sents basic demographic information: years of maternalresidence in the United States, maternal level of educa-tion, and family monthly income. The children were seen

across three time points (Time 1, 33–37 months of age;Time 2, 48–49 months of age; and Time 3, 59–61 monthsof age). The study included only children who met thefollowing criteria: parents reported no concerns aboutspeech–language development, children had normal hear-ing histories, and none of the children were receivingspecial education services.

Instruments

Demographic Questionnaire. We modified Mat-tes and Santiago’s (1985) Bilingual Language ProficiencyQuestionnaire (BFQ) to gain detailed information aboutfamily and child language usage, as well as demographicand child development information. Specific questionsfrom the BFQ included the following:

• What percentage of the time does themother speak Spanish with the child?

• What percentage of the time does the fatherspeak Spanish to the child?

• What percentage of the time does the childspeak Spanish with his or her parents?

We were also able to gain basic information aboutpreschool enrollment. We amended the BPQ by addinga number of questions about child development, in-cluding the following:

• Do you have concerns about your child’sspeech–language development?

• Does your child have a history of ear infections?

• Does your child receive speech–language orother special education supports?

We added these questions to be sure that the chil-dren in the study were typically developing and becauseresearchers studying Spanish-speaking children havefound that parents’ reports of their child’s speech and

language skills, combined with other measures, is a strongpredictor of language impairment (Restrepo, 1998).

Spanish Language Assessment Procedure–ThirdEdition. The Spanish Language Assessment Procedure–Third Edition (SLAP; Mattes, 1995) is a Spanish-languageassessment that measures both expressive vocabulary andthe ability to comprehend and use language in structuredacademic tasks. Mattes created the SLAP to use withpreschool- and primary-age children; however, the testcontains no developmental norms, standard scores, reli-ability, or validity information. We selected the SLAPbecause at the onset of this study, widely accepted, stan-dardized measures of language development for theage groups in our study did not exist. We also felt that itwas appropriate to use a nonstandardized assessment,given that alternative and dynamic assessments are of-ten recommended for children from culturally and lin-guistically diverse backgrounds (Gutiérrez-Clellen & Peña2001; Laing & Kamhi, 2003.) For the Expressive Vo-cabulary subtest of the SLAP, the child is asked to namepictures of 80 items within 12 categories (e.g., food, fur-niture, clothing, shapes, colors). The Language subtestmeasures both receptive and expressive language, as wellas concept development. Language items fall into thefollowing seven subsets:

1. describes noun function,2. comprehends spatial concepts,3. describes differences between objects,4. makes inferences,5. predicts outcomes,6. follows instructions in sequence, and7. retells short stories.

A bilingual SLP administered the SLAP in Spanishand recorded raw scores for both the Expressive Vocab-ulary and Language subtests. If a child provided an an-swer in English, he or she was politely prompted to


TABLE 1. Demographic Characteristics of Families in Study

Characteristics M SD Minimum Maximum

Mother’s U.S. residencea 5.68 2.38 1 8

Maternal education (# yrs. formal) 7.68 2.79 1 11

Family income (monthly) $1,254 $460 $600 $2,000

aNumbers of years the child’s mother had resided in the United States at the onset of the study.


provide the answer in Spanish. Spanish responses werecalculated, and regional or dialectal variations of theseitems were accepted as correct. Five of the 10 partici-pants provided some answers in English; in most cases,this involved one or two responses. The SLP recordedthese English responses; however, because language main-tenance requires the continued usage of L1, they werenot counted toward correct Spanish responses.

Videotape Behavior Scale. We created a Video-tape Behavior Scale (VBS) to gain information about howthe parents felt about the videotaped interactions. At theend of each home visit, the parents rated the naturalness(very natural, natural, somewhat natural, not natural) oftheir child’s behaviors during the videotaping. The VBSalso included questions about perceptions of the par-ents regarding how much their child talked during thevideotaping (my child spoke more than normally, my childspoke an average or normal amount, my child spoke lessthan he or she normally speaks). And finally, the parentswere asked to rate the play and activities that were ob-served during the home visit in terms of how represen-tative they were of daily interactions in the home (thiswas a typical play interaction or this was different thantypical interactions). The form included a space at theend for parents to provide additional comments.

Procedure

A bilingual early childhood teacher or SLP recruited theparticipants in this study at a metro-area health-carecenter that was located in a neighborhood where mostlyMexican immigrants lived. These professionals com-pleted three home visits at roughly child age of 3 years(33–37 months), 4 years (48–49 months), and 5 years(59–61 months). During these visits, the intervention-ists used the demographic questionnaire to collect andupdate demographic and other information. In addition,the interventionists collected videotaped, nonstructured,and naturalistic parent–child interactions. Parents wereasked to interact and play with their children, using itemsin the home, as they normally would. At the end of eachvisit, the parents completed the VBS to rate different di-mensions of the videotaped interaction. At the Time 3visit, the interventionists administered the SLAP aftercollecting the videotaped sample.

Language Transcripts. Seven native-Spanish-speaking graduate students in speech–language pathol-ogy transcribed the 25-minute mother–child videotapedinteractions from each home visit. These graduate

students entered the transcripts into the CHAT formatof the Child Language Data Exchange System lan-guage transcription program (CHILDES; MacWhin-ney, 2000). We trained the transcribers in this system,each of whom achieved 90% reliability prior to begin-ning coding independently; in addition, transcriberspaired up and checked for reliability every fifth tapethat a transcriber completed. We employed the CLANsystem of CHILDES to calculate the observed language,including Spanish D, MLUw (mean length of utterancein words), number of utterances code-mixed, numberof utterances with errors produced, and number ofSpanish general terms/nondescriptive words used (fora review, see MacWhinney, 2000).

D is a measure of lexical diversity (Malvern &Richards, 2002) that is derived from an iterative processthat begins with 35 randomly selected tokens and con-tinues up to 50 tokens. For each iteration, a type/tokenratio (TTR) is calculated by averaging the TTRs obtainedfrom 100 randomly selected subsamples consisting ofthe number of tokens for that point (MacWhinney,2000). Type/token ratios from each iteration and thenumber of tokens are plotted on a graph (N = 35–N =50). The final result is a curvilinear distribution, whichis compared to a probabilistic model of curvilinear TTRdistributions and assigned a value: D (for a review, seeDuran, Malvern, Richards, & Chipere, 2004; Malvern &Richards, 1997; Owen & Leonard, 2002). A larger D re-sults in a higher curve and greater lexical diversity orexpressive vocabulary (MacWhinney, 2000). For the cur-rent study, we used D to measure the lexical diversity ofour Spanish-speaking children. Because the primary vari-able of interest is Spanish language development, we cal-culated Spanish D by including only Spanish words.Spanish D was calculated at each time point for eachparticipant.

To provide an additional estimate of the reliability ofSpanish D for the current study, MLUw was calculated atTime 1 for each participant and compared to Time 1Spanish D scores. Researchers have described MLUwas a satisfactory language sample measure in youngerpreschool-age, Spanish-speaking children (Gutiérrez-Clellen, Restrepo, Bedore, Peña, & Anderson, 2000). Azero-order correlation revealed that Time 1 Spanish D andMLUw were highly correlated (r = .86, p = .001, N = 10),suggesting that Spanish D was a valid measure of lexicaldevelopment. We did not select MLUw as a measurementto be used throughout this study because MLU measure-ments are thought to have limitations once childrenprogress beyond 3.5 morphemes per sentence (BernsteinRatner & Menn, 2000; Tager-Flusberg, 2005). Because 4-

and 5-year-olds typically have progressed beyond 3.5morphemes per sentence (Miller & Chapman, 1981) andbecause we included time points at 4 and 5 years of age,MLU was not an ideal measure for the current study. Ddoes not contain this limitation; in fact, D is thought tocapture lexical development and diversity in both youngspeakers and mature speakers (Duran, Malvern, Richards,& Chipere, 2004; Malvern & Richards, 2002).

Coding. Transcribers coded code-mixing (as notedpreviously, the mixing of or alternating between two lan-guages within a single utterance of more than a singleword, e.g., aquí hay un fish). We handled code-mixing inthe same way that other researchers did in earlier studies(Anderson, 1999a; Brice & Anderson, 1999): obtaining apercentage of code-mixed utterances for each transcript.This involved counting the total number of code-mixedutterances and dividing that by the total number ofutterances.

For each grammatical error that a child producedduring the videotaped interactions, transcribers enteredan error code and specified the error (e.g., child used unpelota for una pelota). We later calculated the percent-age of errors by dividing the number of utterances witherrors by the total number of utterances. We also usedCHILDES QWAL command (for a review, see Mac-Whinney, 2000) to count the number of general terms/nondescriptive words, as described by Anderson (1999a);these included éso, ésa, esto, esta, este, aquí, acá allá, andallí. This finite list of general terms/nondescriptive wordsincludes demonstrative pronouns and place adverbs.

Data Analysis

First, we examined the results of the VBSs to determineif the videotaped interactions were characteristic of whatparents typically observed. We then ran the CHILDEScommands to calculate observed child language vari-ables. We plotted the Spanish D scores for each childand visually inspected them. Finally, we entered the lan-guage measures, child language behaviors, language us-age and exposure variables, and demographic surveyinformation into an SPSS database to calculate meansand standard deviations.

RESULTS

Videotape Behavior Scale

Prior to considering the variables from the language tran-scripts, we examined the results of the VBSs, for several

reasons. Parent–child interaction styles across Hispanic/Latino cultures vary, with parenting behaviors rangingfrom nurturing-permissive to authoritative (for a review,see Rodriguez & Olswang, 2003; Zuniga, 2004). As a re-sult, there was the possibility that some of the childrendemonstrated less spontaneous utterances or mighthave demonstrated restricted play routines because ofcultural variations in parent–child interactions, such asrespect for the parent or adult visitors in the home. Inaddition, we wanted to know if the interactions and be-haviors observed were typical of what the parent ob-served on a regular basis. Across all three time points,the parents rated their children’s behavior as natural orvery natural. At Times 1 and 2, all of the parents ratedtheir children as speaking a less than average, an average,or a more than average amount. At the third time point,eight parents reported that their children spoke eitherthe average or more than average amount, whereas 2parents reported that their child spoke less than average.One parent wrote in the comments section that herchild normally talks all the time but was quieter on theday of the visit. We examined the transcripts for thesechildren and saw that they (a) spoke a comparable ormore than comparable amount at their Time 2 visitsand (b) took a comparable number of turns as the otherchildren at the Time 3 visit.

Finally, we examined the parents’ ratings of howrepresentative the interactions were of daily parent–child play interactions in the home. Nine of the familiesreported that the interactions videotaped were charac-teristic of a typical play interaction they engage in withtheir child on a regular basis. One parent reported thatthe recorded interaction was different than typical inter-actions, noting that her child usually behaved betterthan was observed on the day of the recording. We visu-ally inspected this child’s language transcripts and foundthat his language behaviors were not different from thoseof the other children. Based on the results from the VBS,we believed that the videotaped interactions and thetranscriptions obtained from these interactions were—for the most part—representative of behaviors, language,and interactions that the parents typically observed inthe home.

Language Measures

Spanish D Trajectories. Figure 1 presents the Span-ish D scores, plotted at all three time points, for each ofthe 10 participants, as well as the mean trajectory (pre-sented with a dotted black line). Five of the trajectoriesdemonstrated a general positive growth trend, which



suggests a Spanish language maintenance profile. Threeof the trajectories demonstrated a decrease in Spanish Dat Time 2 or Time 3; however, at Time 3 these 3 partici-pants had Spanish D values (61.01, 43.64, 65.47) thatwere within 1 standard deviation of the mean Spanish Dvalue at Time 3 (M = 55.45, SD = 22.59); thus, they alsodemonstrated L1 maintenance. Two participants demon-strated trajectories that declined over time, which webelieve indicated language loss. Based on our visual in-spection of the trajectories, we created a language main-tenance group consisting of 8 of the children and alanguage loss group consisting of the other 2 children.

We were interested in learning more about the twoparticipants, both girls, who had demonstrated languageloss. We first examined parental responses from the VBSand found that they indicated that the videotaped inter-actions were characteristic of what parents observed ona daily basis. We assigned these two participants thepseudonyms Angelica and Blanca. Angelica’s trajectorybegan above the mean but gradually decreased overtime, whereas Blanca presented with comparable scoresacross all three time points that were considerably lowerthan the mean trajectory. Blanca and her family partici-pated in two additional visits during Blanca’s secondyear of life (27–33 months of age), but we did not usethese data due to the absence of comparable scores for theother participants. We should note, however, that Blanca’sSpanish D scores at these points were higher than her

scores at the three time points used in this study, sug-gesting language loss rather than low ability. Both girlshad Spanish D scores at Time 3 that were one standarddeviation or more below the group mean (Angelica =24.18, Blanca = 15.49, M = 55.45, SD = 22.59). Figure 2presents Angelica and Blanca’s trajectories and the meantrajectory.

SLAP Vocabulary and Language. Table 2 pre-sents the SLAP subtests results for both groups. Thelanguage maintenance group presented with a range ofvocabulary scores on the SLAP Expressive Vocabularysubtest, but all of the children were able to identify morethan 55 of the 80 vocabulary items elicited. We alsonoted a great deal of variability on the SLAP Languagesubtest items, with participants from the language main-tenance group correctly identifying between 9 and 39items. The language loss group presented with scores onthe SLAP that were lower than those of the languagemaintenance group. Angelica’s Expressive Vocabularyscore was almost in the same range as the languagemaintenance group’s mean score; however, her score onthe Language subtest was lower than the maintenancegroup’s mean score. Blanca presented with lower scoreson both the Expressive Vocabulary and Language sub-tests. We should note, however, that Blanca providedmany answers in English. Because our goal was to mea-sure Spanish language development and L1 mainte-

FIGURE 1. Spanish D trajectories for the 10 participants seen at all three time points and the mean tra-jectory (represented by dotted line).

nance profiles, none of the children were given credit forresponses in English. The SLAP administrator promptedall of the children to use Spanish. Blanca either chose touse English or was not able to complete these tasks inSpanish.

Language Behaviors

For both groups, we then examined the observed childlanguage behaviors: percentage of utterances code-mixed;percentage of utterances with errors; and number ofgeneral terms/nondescriptive words (see Table 3). Weobserved very little code-mixing in the language main-tenance group; in fact, three of the children did not

code-mix at all. We also observed limited error patternsin this group, with many of the children making errorsin less than 2% of their utterances. In the language lossgroup, Angelica code-mixed at about the same rate asthe maintenance group, but she had a somewhat higheruse of general terms/nondescriptive words. Blanca code-mixed more than the children from the maintenancegroup, which may have been an artifact of lexical levelloss in Spanish or her preference for English. Either way,her percentage of code-mixing was comparable to thatof typically developing bilingual children from otherstudies (e.g., Brice & Anderson, 1999). More important,Blanca had substantially more errors than all of the otherchildren in this study.


FIGURE 2. Angelica and Blanca’s trajectories and the mean trajectory (dotted line = mean trajectory;middle line with diamonds at time points = Angelica’s trajectory; bottom line with circles at time points =Blanca’s trajectory).

TABLE 2. Language Maintenance Group Mean and Standard Deviations for Language Variables atTime 3, and Scores for Angelica and Blanca

Language maintenance groupa Language loss groupb

Variable M SD Min. Max. Angelica Blanca

Spanish D 64.36 14.05 43.64 84.98 24.18 15.49

SLAPExpressive Vocabulary 60.00 5.00 56.00 70.00 52.00 1.00Language 27.88 9.30 9.00 39.00 2.00 0.00

Note. SLAP = Spanish Language Assessment Procedure–Third Edition (Mattes, 1995).an = 8. bn = 2.


Language Usage and Exposure

Finally, we examined the language usage and exposurefor both groups (see Table 4). It should be noted thatnone of the parents indicated that their children wereenrolled in preschool programs that used only Spanish.Several parents indicated that their children were inbilingual settings, and most of them noted that theirchildren were enrolled in preschools that used English.Yet, on a separate question these parents indicated thattheir children were exposed to Spanish at school. Someresearchers have stated that these types of questionsare confusing to parents, in part because they may notknow how languages are being used in the classroom(Rodriguez, Diaz, Duran, & Espinoza, 1995). Based onparticipant responses in our study, however, it appearssafe to assume that the children who were enrolled inpreschools were exposed to some level of English in-struction (either English + Spanish or English only).

We found that the language maintenance group hadrelatively little exposure to English through immediatefamily members, but three of the children used Englishwith friends. We saw a great deal of variability in pre-school enrollment: Some children had not been enrolledin preschool, whereas others had 1, 2, or 3 years ofpreschool experience. (It should also be noted that onlyone of the eight children from the language mainte-nance group spent time in Mexico.)

We observed that the children in the language lossgroup presented with a number of differences in lan-guage usage and exposure. Angelica’s language usagewith her parents was much like that of the maintenancegroup; however, she used both Spanish and English withsiblings and friends. Angelica had not been enrolled inpreschool, but her parents reported that her brotherspoke mostly English with Angelica and that she re-

ceived daycare in the home 40 hours a week with anaunt who spoke both Spanish and English. Her parentsalso reported that Angelica was exposed to Englishthrough television and that she used English when sheplayed. Her family had spent 4 weeks in Mexico in thepast year, which was higher than the average for the lan-guage maintenance group.

Blanca used English 50% of the time when speak-ing with her parents, which is noticeably more than thefor the language maintenance group. Blanca also usedonly English when speaking with siblings and friends.She had been enrolled in preschool for 3 years, and herparents also reported that they used English when read-ing with Blanca and that Blanca used English when sheplayed. Blanca’s family had spent 3 weeks in Mexico inthe past year, which was also higher than the average forthe language maintenance group.

DISCUSSION

How Do Language Maintenance or Loss Trajectories Compare to ScoresObtained on Structured Language Tasks?

We were interested to see how the two groups in thisstudy performed on the SLAP Expressive Vocabulary andLanguage subtests. We found that the children in thelanguage maintenance group did quite well on the Ex-pressive Vocabulary subtest and presented with a rangeof skills on the Language subtest. One of the children inthe language loss group named more than 50 items, butthe other child was able to name only 2 items in Span-ish. Both of the children in the language loss group haddifficulty with the Language items.

The results from the SLAP demonstrated the vari-ability that can be seen in early sequential bilingual chil-

TABLE 3. Language Maintenance Group Means and Standard Deviations and Observed ChildLanguage Behaviors at Time 3 for Angelica and Blanca


Variable M SD Angelica Blanca

Code-mixed (%) 1 1 1 8

Errors (%) 2 2 4 18

General terms (# produced) 17 12 25 8

Note. % = percentage of child’s utterances.an = 8. bn = 2.

dren. For some children, early signs of language lossmay take the form of a decrease in L1 vocabulary skills,whereas for other children, language loss may take theform of decreased ability to handle L1 language tasks orto develop academic language skills in their L1. In thesecases, it would be inappropriate to compare their lan-guage development to that of monolingual peers orearly sequential bilinguals who have maintained theirfirst language. Alternatives would be to consider thechild’s emergent skills in English or to consider bothlanguages together. For example, applying strategies suchas conceptual scoring allows a child to receive credit forskills acquired regardless of the language used (L1 or L2;for a review, see Bedore, Peña, Garcia, & Cortez, 2005).In our study, if we had considered the performance inEnglish by Blanca, her vocabulary skills would havebeen near those of the children in the language mainte-nance group. Her language scores still would have beenlower, but this would not be surprising, given her shorthistory of as an English speaker.

What Child Language Behaviors Are Associated With Language Maintenance or Loss?

We examined the patterns of three language behaviors:use of general term/nondescriptive words, code-mixing,and grammatical errors. One of the children in the lan-guage loss group began to increase her usage of generalterms/nondescriptive words (éso, ésa, esto, esta, este,

aquí, acá allá, and allí) much like a child described in An-derson’s study (1999a). Researchers need to study thisphenomenon further before general terms/nondescriptivewords can be unquestionably associated with languageloss. Numerous studies have demonstrated that code-mixing is a typical bilingual behavior that is not relatedto language deficits. Our study substantiated these find-ings; we detected no relationship between code-mixingand decreased L1 usage.

Conversely, percentage of grammatical errors washigher in the two children from the language loss group;these findings are consistent with the results from earlystudies. Previous studies have also indicated that gram-matical errors are more common in children with SLI;thus, a child experiencing language loss could be misdi-agnosed as having SLI. SLPs can address this problemand differentiate these populations through consideringmultiple sources of converging evidence, such as obtain-ing the child’s bilingual language history, completingthorough parent and teacher interviews, comparing thechild’s performance to that of other children with simi-lar language and educational backgrounds, and describ-ing changes in the child’s L1 and L2 competence over time(Anderson, 2004; Gutiérrez-Clellen, Restrepo, Bedore,Peña, & Anderson, 2000; Restrepo, 1998). When tryingto differentiate SLI from language loss, SLPs should alsoapply dynamic assessment practices that elicit variousgrammatical forms, verbal short-term memory skills, andstructured language samples (for a review, see Gutiérrez-Clellen & Peña 2001; Restrepo & Gutiérrez-Clellen, 2004).


TABLE 4. Language Maintenance Group Means and Standard Deviations and Family/Child Language Usageand Exposure Variables at Time 3 for Angelica and Blanca


Variable M SD Angelica Blanca

% Spanish, mother 98.00 5.00 100 90

% Spanish, father 99.00 1.00 100 90

% Spanish, child 90.00 12.00 90 50

Sibling languagec 2.80 .35 2 1

Friend languagec 2.50 .75 2 1

Preschool enrollment (# yrs enrolled) 1.50 1.20 0 3

Weeks in Mexicod .75 2.10 4 3

Note. Sibling language = language that child uses with siblings; friend language = language that child uses with friends.an = 8. bn = 2. cCoding: 3 = Spanish, 2 = Spanish + English, 1 = English. dNumber of weeks that the parent reported the child spent in Mex-ico in the last year.


What Language Usage and Exposure Variables Are Associated With Language Maintenance or Loss?

We found that the children in the Spanish-languagemaintenance group came from homes where familymembers continued to use Spanish. According to theirparents, these children used some English with otherchildren and in some instances were exposed to Englishthrough preschool enrollment. The children in the lan-guage loss group presented with language usage and ex-posure variables that were both similar and differentfrom those of the language maintenance group. Forboth Angelica and Blanca, parents reported speakingEnglish 90% or more of the time. At the same time, ex-posure to and usage of English in home contexts weremore common. Angelica spoke English and Spanishwith her siblings, whereas Blanca spoke English 50% ofthe time with her parents and spoke only English withsiblings and peers. Blanca was enrolled in a preschoolwhere she was exposed to some level of English, whereasAngelica had multiple sources of English exposure inthe home (e.g., aunt, older brother, reading activities,during play, television). Both children spent more timein Mexico than the other children in the study, which issomewhat surprising, because one would expect thatthey would thereby have had more exposure to Spanishor that their parents would be more likely to encouragetheir child to develop Spanish language skills to use withrelatives in Mexico. It is likely that other child charac-teristics, including motivation to speak L1 or L2, lan-guage aptitude, learning style, and personality, influencewhether a child will maintain or lose his or her first lan-guage (Moore, Beatty, & Perez-Mendez, 1995). In brief,we found no specific variable to be predictive of de-creased L1 usage, but we did see that the children whoexperienced decreases in L1 began to use more Englishwith family members or peers.

This study described the Spanish language usagetrajectories of 10 children of Mexican immigrants overthe course of 3 years. There are limitations to this study,including the small number of participants studied andthe lack of detailed information about language in-struction in preschool programs. Also, this study onlyconsidered the Spanish language development of thesechildren; some researchers have found that consideringboth languages can be a better gage of language devel-opment than considering only L1 or only L2 (Bedore,Peña, Garcia, & Cortez, 2005). However, for the currentstudy, the continued use and development of Spanishwas of particular interest.

Conclusions

This study substantiated the findings from earlier stud-ies that grammatical errors are predictive of languageloss but code-mixing is not. More studies are needed tofurther investigate the relationship between general terms/nondescriptive words and language loss. In addition, thisstudy demonstrated the tremendous amount of vari-ability in the language trajectories of early sequentialbilinguals. Not surprisingly, it appears that languagemaintenance occurs when families continue using L1 inthe home. Children who demonstrated language main-tenance were able to demonstrate more vocabulary andlanguage skills than the children in the language lossgroup. Our results are consistent with a body of emerg-ing research that has asserted that preservation of homelanguage and culture ensures optimal continued lan-guage development for young emergent bilinguals (Gene-see et al., 2004; Guiberson, 2005; Gutierrez-Clellen, 1999;Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2005; Kohnert, Yim, Nett, Kan,& Duran, 2005; Moore & Perez-Mendez, 2006; Restrepo& Kruth, 2000). Our analyses also suggest that (a) lan-guage loss can occur under various language usage andexposure conditions and (b) a number of differing lan-guage behaviors may be observed. Future studies in whichresearchers investigate language maintenance and lan-guage loss should consider child characteristics (e.g., mo-tivation, language aptitude, learning style, personality);parental beliefs about bilingualism and L1 maintenance;and detailed information about preschool programming,including language of instruction and teacher beliefsabout bilingualism.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mark M. Guiberson, PhD, CCC-SLP, is a bilingualspeech–language pathologist and an assistant professorof audiology and speech–language sciences at the Uni-versity of Northern Colorado. His research interests in-clude language development in young Spanish-speakingchildren, efficacy of programming for infant/toddlersand families from diverse backgrounds, and language andacademic development in English language learners withdisabilities. Karen C. Barrett, PhD, is a professor in theDepartment of Human Development & Family Studies atColorado State University. Her current interests includefamily and cultural influences on development, emotionregulation and its influence on development, and socialemotions such as guilt and shame. Elizabeth G. Jan-cosek, PhD, is a senior instructor emerita at the Univer-sity of Colorado–Boulder. Her interests include language

acquisition in children from Spanish-speaking families,phonological disorders, and multicultural issues in speechcommunication differences and disorders. Christine Yo-shinaga Itano, PhD, is a professor in the Department ofSpeech, Language & Hearing Sciences at the Universityof Colorado–Boulder. Her expertise is in the language/communication, cognitive, and social–emotional devel-opment of infants and children with significant hearingloss, including children in Spanish-speaking families andother non–English speaking homes. Address: Mark Gui-berson, University of Northern Colorado, Audiology andSpeech–Language Sciences, Campus Box 140, Greeley,CO 80639-0030; e-mail: [email protected]

AUTHORS’ NOTE

Funding from the U.S. Office of Education (Grants 153-5407 andH133G50069) awarded to the Speech-Language and Hearing Sci-ences Department at the University of Colorado–Boulder allowedfor the collection of the data used in this study.

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Submitted: July 21, 2006Revised: December 7, 2006Accepted: January 7, 2007


Language Maintenance and Loss in Preschool-Age Children of Mexican ImmigrantsLongitudinal Study

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