A research is conducted which lays emphasis on how teachers can use bilingual student's writing as a springboard for deeper exploration into societal inequities in particular by paying attention to both the ideas and the voices revealed in their written words. The goal is to create an empowering learning environment in which students are able to…

This study examines the influence of social context on the home environment for children aged 0 to 14years, testing for differences between Cubans (n = 47), Mexicans (n = 240), Mexican Americans (n = 415), and Puerto Ricans (n = 162). Hierarchical linear models showed significant cultural and acculturation effects on the trajectories of cognitive…

This study investigated the use of nonnative function words in the written production of learners of Italian as a third or fourth language with English, Spanish, or French as native or nonnative languages. Results show the frequent use of the French subject pronoun il (he) in learners' texts. The rate of subject insertion and omission was thus…

Investigates how the use of think-aloud protocols, both concurrent and retrospective, can contribute to the study of the role of attention in second language acquisition. The study is based on analysis of think-aloud protocols produced by 74 first-year learners of Spanish during and immediately after a reading and multiple-choice activity.…

The activation of arousal components for emotion-laden words in English (e.g. kiss, death) was examined in two groups of participants: English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1, emotion-laden words were rated on valence and perceived arousal. These norms were used to construct prime-target word pairs that were used in…

Nearly 40 years have passed since the publication of Rubin's renowned study on Paraguayan bilingualism. The present study compares the results of surveys conducted in the years 2000-2001 with data from Rubin's 1960-1961 investigation. The main objective of this study is to examine the linguistic changes that have occurred in four decades and the…

Studies investigating the role gesture plays in communication claim gesture has a minimal role, while others claim that gesture carries a large communicative load. In these studies, however, the role of gesture has been assessed in a context where speech is understood and could easily carry the entire communicative burden. We examine the role of…

The population of Spanish-speaking families in Iowa has increased dramatically over the last decade. Needs assessment activities identified the need to reach out to these families with Extension educational programs designed to increase parenting skills. Iowa State University Extension prepared family life specialists to implement such parent…

In this paper we present a case of "word-meaning deafness," characterised by serious problems in the comprehension of spoken language, whilst repetition and writing words and non-words from dictation are preserved. This performance indicates the impossibility of correctly accessing phonological representation from the semantic representation of…

The objective of this study was to assess whether authentic arts-based curricula facilitate the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL) without sacrificing proficiency in the first language (Spanish). This question is examined theoretically and empirically. First, the use of an arts-based curriculum is positioned within a Vygotskian…

Background: The Quality of Life Questionnaire (QOL-Q) is used widely to evaluate the quality of life of persons with intellectual disability (ID). Its validity for use with Spanish-speaking cultures has been demonstrated for individuals with visual disabilities, but not for those with physical or intellectual disabilities. Such was the purpose of…

This study investigated the reliability and validity of the Brief Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (ARSMA-II) using two samples of Mexican American children: 292 middle school students from a mid-sized culturally diverse southwestern city, and 116 third- through fifth-graders in culturally homogeneous rural elementary schools.…

This article considers the validity and factorial invariance of an attitudinal measure of familism. Using a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. Hispanics, the validity and factorial invariance of the measure was tested across country of origin (United States, Mexico, and Latin America) and the language in which the survey was conducted…

The psychometric properties of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) are examined for English-speaking (n = 211) and Spanish-speaking (n = 194) Latino women. Internal consistency of total scale scores is satisfactory (Cronbach's alpha of .70 to .84). However, subscale alphas range from .46 to .80. Confirmatory factor analyses support five…

Previous works in English have revealed that disfluencies follow regular patterns and that incorporating them into the language model of a speech recognizer leads to lower perplexities and sometimes to a better performance. Although work on disfluency modeling has been applied outside the English community (e.g., in Japanese), as far as we know…