A Longitudinal Analysis of Spanish Morphosyntactic Performance Based on Spanish-English Bilingual Exposure and Usage

Abstract

This study examines the interaction between language experience and Spanish morphosyntactic development using longitudinal data of Spanish-English bilingual children with typical language development (TD) and developmental language disorder (DLD). Specifically, this study explores how language exposure and usage influence the production accuracy of articles, direct object clitics and subjunctives across 4 years. Analyses of growth trajectories show that the trajectories differ by both language ability groups and morphosyntactic structures. Among the three grammatical markers, the TD group demonstrates different patterns of growth while the DLD group demonstrates consistent ascending trajectories. The accuracy of articles is the highest in all three markers across 4 years for both TD and DLD groups. The accuracy of direct object clitics in the DLD group increases over time while it decreases slightly in the TD group. The accuracy of subjunctives increases in both TD and DLD groups, but the increase was higher in the DLD group than in the TD group. Results of the generalized linear model (GLM) of the accuracy of three grammatical markers indicate that the contributing factors differ by the marker: language exposure, language usage, language ability group and grade level have significant effects on accuracy of articles; language ability group is the only contributing factor to the production accuracy of direct object clitics; and language exposure, language ability group and grade level significantly influence the production accuracy of subjunctives. Results of the GLM of accuracy at the fourth assessment time also reveal that contributing factors to accuracy of fourth-year performance differ by grammatical markers: a significant effect of accuracy at first observation time for articles and direct object clitics, a significant effect of baseline accuracy for articles and subjunctives, and a significant effect of language ability for subjunctives. These results confirm that articles, direct object clitics and subjunctives are reliable markers of language impairment for Spanish-English bilingual children. This study also describes the specific influence of language experience within the language ability group and grade level. The influence of language experience on production accuracy differs by language ability group and morphosyntactic structures.