Ellia Yarandi
Pronouns: She/Her
Research Mentor(s): Teresa Satterfield
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Romance Languages Literatures / LSA
Program:
Authors: Ellia Yarandi, Teresa Satterfield
Session: Session 3: 11:00 am – 11: 50 am
Poster: 97
Abstract
Research continues to provide evidence of the strong association between linguistic processing and human experience (Hernández, Bodet, & Shen, 2021). Given that more than half of the world’s population is multilingual (National Library of Medicine, 2017), studies emerging on the cognitive effects of child bilingualism are particularly interesting: Research suggests that a strong correlation exists between child bilingualism and heightened capacities in certain executive brain functions such as attention and memory, as well as cortical specificities (Arredondo, Hu, Seifert, Satterfield & Kovelman (2018). The current study is part of a larger-scale, ongoing project on US Spanish-speaking children’s (ages 4 – 11) Spanish language acquisition and maintenance. We examined cognition and literacy development in Spanish-English bilingual children (N= 10), ages 6 – 8, in SE Michigan with with behavioral and experimental tasks. The study participants were all students in a Saturday Spanish-language program for Spanish-speaking children. As part of a mixed-methods approach, observational data was collected for 10 Saturday sessions in Fall 2023. Each student was observed and language production, reading and interactions were recorded.The observational data were thematically coded. Students’ Spanish reading and linguistic knowledge were also assessed using standardized tests in September and December. In Winter 2024 experimental data consisting of measures such as the “Flanker test” were collected. The Winter data was compared to older Midwestern Spanish-English bilingual students. Given our hypothesis that students’ cognitive measures would correlate to their bilingual language level, our preliminary data suggest that young children with higher bilingual proficiency develop and potentially maintain strong cognitive measures with continued exposure to Spanish.
