Young Spanish–English Language
Learners’ Cognate Facilitation on
Picture Naming
Lindsey Leacox
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls
Carla Wood
Gretchen Sunderman
Christopher Schatschneider
Florida State University, Tallahassee
I
n speech-language pathology, the term cognate has more than one meaning; for this bilingual investigation, the definition of interest
classifies cognates as words with shared meaning and
linguistic similarity across languages (Harley, 2008).
An example in English and Spanish is the cognate
ABSTRACT: Purpose: Cognates are words that share
meaning and form, where the translation-equivalent
pairs between languages are phonologically similar
(e.g., baby–bebé and telephone–teléfono). Noncognates are word pairs that share meaning but not form
(e.g., bear–oso). The literature strongly establishes a
cognate advantage with bilingual adults, although
evidence for younger bilinguals is still emerging. This
study investigated young Spanish-speaking English
language learners’ (ELLs’) picture naming of cognates
and noncognates.
Method: Thirty-one Spanish-speaking ELL children
completed a picture-naming task in English and in
Spanish, in a counterbalanced order, to compare performance on cognates and noncognates. Data analysis
using a repeated measures analysis of variance compared cognate and noncognate accuracy in English and
Spanish. The number of translation-equivalent pairs
Contemporary Issues
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word pair baby–bebé, which shares the concept of an
“infant” as well as linguistic similarity in phonology
(i.e., sounds produced), orthography (i.e., spelling patterns), and morphology (i.e., word structure).
In the average educated adult’s vocabulary,
English and Spanish share approximately 10,000 to
between cognates and noncognates (i.e., named in
both languages) was also compared.
Results: Young ELL children demonstrated higher
naming accuracy on phonologically similar cognates
than on phonologically dissimilar noncognates,
which is similar to the cognate advantage found
with bilingual adults and with young bilingual children on receptive tasks. Additionally, more translation-equivalent pairs were found with cognates than
with noncognates.
Conclusion: Findings suggest that the cognate status
of words should be considered for assessment practices and clinical decision making. Future research
should examine additional cognate measures and
individual factors that influence cognate facilitation.
KEY WORDS: bilingualism, assessment, phonology,
language
Leacox
et al.:
Spanish–English
Language
Cognate
Communication
Science
and Young
Disorders
• Volume 43 • 115–128
• Spring Learners’
2016 © NSSLHA
1092-5171/16/4301-0115
Facilitation
115
15,000 cognates, estimated as one-third to one-half of
one’s vocabulary (Thomas, Nash, Thomas, & Richmond, 2005). In contrast, noncognates share meaning,
but the translation pairs share less linguistic similarity (e.g., bear–oso), and false cognates share lexical
similarity but have different semantic meanings (e.g.,
embarrassed–embarazada, in Spanish means pregnant).
Only 4.5% of the 161,163 American SpeechLanguage-Hearing Association (ASHA) members
reported meeting the definition of being bilingual
(ASHA, 2014), but at least 60% of school speechlanguage pathologists (SLPs) reported having children
who are English language learners (ELLs) on their
caseload (ASHA, 2010). Thus, SLPs may be interested
in cognates due to the cross-language interaction and
linguistic similarity that cognate pairs provide.
Cognates have received increased attention in the
bilingual literature for their cross-linguistic overlap
and their potential for cognate facilitation. Cognate
facilitation is when the linguistic features of a word in
one language influence and/or activate the features of
a word in another language (Hoshino & Kroll, 2008;
Sánchez-Casas & García-Albea, 2005). For this reason,
bilingual or second language–learning adults recognize
cognates quicker and with fewer errors than they do
noncognates (Sunderman & Schwartz, 2008). Monolingual adults do not demonstrate cognate facilitation
because only one language is present (Colomé, 2001).
Most evidence of cognate facilitation is based on
studies of bilingual adults or older school-age children. Adults demonstrate cognate facilitation as both
languages simultaneously activate regardless of the
language presented during tasks (Blumenfeld & Marian, 2007; Hermans, Bongaerts, de Bot, & Schreuder,
1998; Kroll, Gerfen, & Dussias, 2008). For older
children, providing specific instruction to recognize
cognates may increase word learning (Nagy, García,
Durgunoğlu, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Proctor & Mo,
2009). Bilingual adults and older elementary students
may use the combined phonological and orthographic
similarities of cognates to facilitate reading comprehension (Cunningham & Graham, 2000; Malabonga,
Kenyon, Carlo, August, & Louguit, 2008), whereas
younger children may rely more on just the phonological properties of cognates (Kohnert, Windsor, &
Miller, 2004; Pérez, Peña, & Bedore, 2010). Overall, cognates’ linguistic overlap may increase word
retrieval for bilingual individuals or second-language
learners (Costa, Santesteban, & Caño, 2005; Hoshino
& Kroll, 2008).
Despite the substantial research on cognates
with adults and older children, additional research is
warranted to investigate young bilingual children’s
performance on cognates. The purpose of this study
was to investigate young ELL children’s ability to
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express phonologically similar cognates as compared
to phonologically dissimilar noncognates. Exploring
phonological overlap differences with young bilingual
children has implications to guide word selection for
assessment and potential utility in treatment.
Theoretical Models of Cognates
A theoretical model that is sensitive to cognates
would need to include a conceptual–semantic level
and a lexical level (two labels: language A, language
B) as well as a phonological level for similarity
between words. As a basic framework, a monolingual learner knows one vocabulary concept and one
name for that concept. For the child who is acquiring
another language, Cummins (1981) explained how the
word’s concept is the common underlying proficiency
(CUP) or prior conceptual knowledge that facilitates
the acquisition of another label in a different language for that same concept. If a Spanish-speaking
child knows the concept of an orange and its Spanish
label of naranja, the CUP is the foundation for learning a second label in English; that is, orange.
Cummins’s (1981) model provides a rationale
for cognate facilitation in relation to the overlapping
semantic–lexical representation; however, the phonological overlap is not specifically addressed. The word
production model (Garrett, 1975, 1976; Levelt, 1989)
represents the activation of a word’s concept, the semantic label, and corresponding phonology across multiple stages for bilingual adults. For example, in naming pictures, the first stage involves concept activation;
successive stages involve the retrieval of a spoken
word with its syntactic and phonological properties.
It is hypothesized that the interaction among these
word production stages is not separate like stair steps,
but rather is overlapping and interactive among stages,
similar to cascades or a waterfall (Humphreys, Riddoch, & Quinlen, 1988). For adult bilingual speakers,
cognates have cascaded activation among the stages,
which influences word production when sounds are
similar or overlap between languages. Even in languages where the orthographic script is different (e.g.,
Spanish–English and Japanese–English), bilingual
individuals naming pictures of cognates demonstrated
activation across languages as compared to noncognates (Hoshino & Kroll, 2008). Costa, Caramazza,
and Sebastian-Galles (2000) found that CatalánSpanish adult bilinguals named pictures of cognates
(e.g., gato–gat [cat]) more rapidly than they named
pictures of noncognates (e.g., perro–gos [dog]),
and this cognate effect disappeared when testing a
monolingual control group. Costa et al. hypothesized
that the overlapping phonology of the words in two
languages permits quicker access. Perhaps not all
and
Disorders • Volume 43 • 115–128 • Spring 2016 bilingual children will demonstrate a cognate effect,
but an interacting bilingual system could lead to a
child’s vocabulary containing more cognates because
the overlapping phonology facilitates learning and acquisition in both languages due to the similar sounds
(Kelley & Kohnert, 2012).
Receptive Vocabulary
Measuring receptive vocabulary is a common procedure used with young children. The vocabulary
inventory of bilingual infants and toddlers contains
either “doublets” (i.e., translation equivalents in both
languages) or “singlets” (i.e., label only in one language). As an example of a doublet, a child produces
the words perro and dog in each language; however,
a child may only label oso as a Spanish singlet and
not yet know the English equivalent of bear. When
calculating vocabulary, a composite or conceptual
score (Bedore, Peña, García, & Cortez, 2005; Pearson, Fernández, & Oller, 1993) is recommended as a
more accurate bilingual representation of the child’s
total number of concepts across languages as compared to a single monolingual score.
In a study by Marchman and Martínez-Sussman
(2002), Spanish–English toddlers demonstrated that a
substantial amount of their vocabulary may be specific to one language. Pearson, Fernández, and Oller
(1995) found that approximately 30% of bilingual
toddlers’ vocabulary words were doublets, with cognates comprising 20% of the doublets, or 7% of their
total vocabulary. Peña, Bedore, and Zlatic-Giunta
(2002) found that in a structured word generation
task, older bilingual children (M = 6.5 years) had
more doublets than did younger bilingual children (M
= 5.1 years).
Kan and Kohnert (2005) investigated the receptive and expressive vocabulary skills of 19 bilingual Hmong–English preschoolers (ages 3;4–5;2
[years;months]). They administered a 50-item receptive picture identification task and a separate 50-item
expressive picture-naming task of developmental
words (from Fenson et al., 1993), using the same
items presented across both languages in a counterbalanced order. The authors analyzed separate
language scores in Hmong and English as well as
a composite score and found that the older children
outperformed the younger children in English but not
in Hmong, and all of the children’s composite scores
were greater than their single language scores.
Kan and Kohnert’s (2005) picture-naming results
also showed that the doublet-to-singlet ratio increased
with age, where younger children (M = 3;11, SD =
0;4) had 90% singlets and 10% doublets/translation
equivalents, and older children (M = 5;0, SD = 0;2)
had 77% singlets and 23% doublets. The authors
stated that the early acquired words were selected
from developmental inventories, but they did not report whether any Hmong–English translation equivalents were cognates or not (Kan & Kohnert, 2005);
cognates may not exist between Hmong and English
(Vang, 2005).
Several studies have used receptive vocabulary
tests to investigate performance differences based
on words’ cognate status. In a preliminary investigation, Umbel, Pearson, Fernández, and Oller (1992)
compared bilingual first graders’ performance on
Spanish and English items from two standardized
receptive vocabulary tests: the Test de Vocabulario
en Imágenes de Peabody (TVIP–H Spanish; Dunn,
Padilla, Lugo, & Dunn, 1986) and the Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised Edition (PPVT–R,
English: Dunn & Dunn, 1981). The bilingual students performed similarly on the English–Spanish
cognate pairs compared to all of the words, 68% and
67% correct, respectively. Umbel et al. also analyzed
appoximately 15% of the sample for priming effects
on cognates, as both the TVIP–H and PPVT–R were
administered in the same sitting. They hypothesized
that if cognates did influence the children’s test performance, then more cognate doublets would exist;
however, they found that cognates did not determine
an “automatic doublet” (p. 1,016). Thus, Umbel et
al. suggested that there was no preliminary evidence
for cognate facilitation, and findings suggested that
children performed similarly on cognate and noncognate vocabulary test items. Umbel and Oller (1994)
found similar results with first, third, and sixth graders, where they reported that no significant differences existed in their performance on cognates (60%
correct) compared to their performance on all words
(65% correct). Although early studies of receptive
vocabulary did not find evidence of a cognate effect
with young children (Umbel et al., 1992; Umbel &
Oller, 1994), initial research suggested that cognates
influenced older bilingual children’s vocabulary
(Nagy et al., 1993).
Researcher-Designed
Investigations With Older Children
Most standardized vocabulary tests are not designed to
examine cognates specifically; thus, many researchers
have developed tasks to investigate phonological similarity. In a two-part study, Kohnert et al. (2004) were
the first to develop a cognate scale to rate the phonological similarity between English and Spanish words,
as children may rely more on the perceived phonological attributes of a word rather than on the orthographic
properties. The Crosslinguistic Overlap Scale for
Leacox et al.: Young Spanish–English Language Learners’ Cognate Facilitation
117
Phonology (COSP; Kohnert et al., 2004; see publication for scale) quantifies cognate status as the amount
of phonological overlap between a word in Spanish
and its English translation equivalent. The COSP
assigns values of 0 to 10 points based on four word
characteristics: initial sound, number of syllables,
percentage of overlapping consonants, and percentage
of overlapping vowels. Higher scores indicate more
phonological overlap, where cognates have values of
six points or higher.
As a secondary study to the COSP scale development, Kohnert et al. (2004) developed a picture–word
recognition task in Spanish for 8- to 13-year-old
monolingual English-speaking children. The Englishspeaking children were shown two pictures (i.e., one
Spanish–English phonologically similar word and one
foil), simultaneously heard a Spanish word, and had
to decide which picture matched the spoken Spanish word by pressing a left or right button. Even
monolingual English speakers without any exposure
to Spanish could identify words with higher Spanish–English overlap (e.g., heard “elefante,” saw
“elephant” and “hammer”) with higher accuracy and
quicker response times, with a medium effect size, as
compared to words with lower COSP scores.
Malabonga et al. (2008) developed the Cognate
Awareness Test (CAT) and administered it in English
to Spanish–English bilingual students in fourth and
fifth grade. The results indicated that fourth-grade
students were aware of cognates, and a 1-year
follow-up showed higher performance on cognates
than noncognates. Spanish picture vocabulary was
related to cognate performance, and English picture
vocabulary was strongly related to noncognate performance. During test design, the researchers recommended using word frequencies specific to children
(e.g., Zeno, Ivens, Millard, & Duvvuri, 1995) and
quantifying the amount of overlap between words
(e.g., Kohnert et al., 2004).
Schelletter (2002) designed a timed picturenaming task to assess the effects of cognates based
on “form similarity” (i.e., translation equivalents
sharing 50% of similar phonemes) with two groups
of 8- to 9-year-olds who were either German language dominant (i.e., less fluent in English) or German–English bilinguals. The bilingual children named
pictures in both languages (English and German) on
cognate and noncognate items. Although both groups
had only eight participants, results yielded a small
yet significant cognate effect. Schelletter found that
children in both groups named cognates quicker than
noncognates in both languages. A cognate effect existed regardless of whether the children were less fluent in their second language or had a mixed language
exposure across their first and second languages.
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Picture-naming accuracy performance may vary
based on age. Kohnert, Bates, and Hernandez (1999)
investigated picture naming with Spanish–English
bilinguals ranging from 5 to 20 years of age in a
cross-sectional design; response accuracy and speed
(i.e., reaction times) showed a developmental language shift, with maturation from Spanish dominance
at younger ages to a balanced cognitive processing
in middle childhood, to English dominance in adolescence and young adulthood. Kohnert et al. administered the picture-naming task in different blocks:
Spanish only, English only, and mixed languages
(i.e., cued to respond in a specific language). Despite
using early-acquired vocabulary stimuli, the children
in the 5- to 7-year age group had decreased accuracy rates, as evidenced by the percentage of pictures
they named correctly (Spanish blocked: 60%, English
blocked 38%, Spanish mixed 46%, English mixed
30%). Although this study was foundational for
examining young bilinguals’ picture-naming abilities,
the potential influence of cognates was not reported.
Recent Cognate Investigations
With Bilingual Children
More than 15 years after the initial studies on testing
cognate status using receptive vocabulary tests (e.g.,
Umbel et al., 1992), Pérez et al. (2010) compared
cognates and noncognates on a standardized receptive
vocabulary subtest (Test of Language Development—
Primary: Third Edition; TOLD–P:3; Newcomer &
Hammill, 1997) with kindergarten and first-grade bilingual students. Pérez et al. administered all 30 test
items (18 cognates, 12 noncognates) and tested past
the typical ceiling so as to get more opportunities to
compare cognates to noncognates. Target words were
administered in order of lesser to greater difficulty
level and reported word frequency to describe word
characteristics. Although previous receptive studies
(e.g., Pearson et al., 1993) did not find a cognate
difference, Pérez et al.’s results demonstrated higher
performance accuracy on cognates over noncognates,
with a 1% to 8% cognate advantage, depending on
grade and language exposure. The advantage equated
to a modest but significant finding of 1.08 to 3.08
words higher on cognates than noncognates. The children with high Spanish language exposure had higher
accuracy on cognates than on noncognates.
With older children of a greater age range, Kelley and Kohnert (2012) more recently examined 8- to
13-year-olds’ cognate advantage through standardized
administration of a receptive English vocabulary test,
the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition,
Form A (PPVT–IIIA; Dunn & Dunn, 1997), and the
English Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test
and
Disorders • Volume 43 • 115–128 • Spring 2016 Third Edition (EOWPVT–3; Brownell, 2000). Spanish translations of these English tests were made by
a trained bilingual speaker in order to identify the
degree of phonological overlap (i.e., COSP), but only
English items were administered, not Spanish. Due
to the increasing difficulty level of vocabulary items
on both standardized tests, items were categorized
across three difficulty levels as well. Kelley and Kohnert found evidence of an overall cognate advantage.
The children’s scores on cognates were significantly
higher than their scores on noncognates for words
with comparable difficulty level; however, not all
of the children demonstrated a cognate advantage.
An analysis of individual student performance on
the PPVT–IIIA showed that age predicted 26% of
the variance for the cognate advantage, where older
children significantly outperformed younger children.
On the EOWPVT–3, a nonverbal intelligence score
approached significance (p = 0.56), which would
account for 9% of the variance. Although conclusive
results indicated evidence of cognate facilitation, the
use of standardized vocabulary tests limits the ability
to match cognates and noncognates on word-level
factors such as length and frequency. Kelley and
Kohnert also pointed out that the original purpose of
the standardized testing tools was to evaluate vocabulary, not cognate performance.
Based on this review of the literature, recent
studies’ results suggest that vocabulary words show
preliminary evidence of a cognate advantage for
bilingual children. Investigators have examined cognate status using standardized receptive vocabulary
tests (Pearson et al., 1993; Pérez et al., 2010; Umbel et al., 1992), standardized receptive and expressive vocabulary tests with older children (Kelley &
Kohnert, 2012), and researcher-developed tasks to
specifically examine cognates with older children
(e.g., Kohnert et al., 2004; Malabonga et al., 2008;
Schelletter, 2002). Expressive picture-naming tasks
have been conducted with younger bilingual children,
but cognate status has not been investigated (Kan &
Kohnert, 2005). To date, no one has examined the
expressive picture naming of cognates with younger
bilingual children.
It was unknown how young children would
perform on an expressive picture-naming task that
was designed specifically to test cognates. We
hypothesized that because bilingual children have
doublets in their vocabulary (Pearson et al., 1995), it
is plausible that children with more doublets could
have higher picture-naming accuracy overall. Perhaps
more doublets (i.e., translation equivalents) would be
present in word pairs that were cognates due to the
overlapping phonology between English and Spanish.
If a cognate advantage was found, it was unknown
whether the cognate advantage would be present in
only the second language (Malabonga et al., 2008),
or, given the young age and early-acquired vocabulary, whether a cognate advantage would be present
in both languages (Schelletter, 2002), evident of the
interacting bilingual linguistic representation. Additionally, if a cognate effect was evident, child factors
may relate to cognate status, such as age and/or language exposure, as seen in receptive tasks (Kelley &
Kohnert, 2012; Pérez et al., 2010), or nonverbal intelligence as significance was approached with older
children (Kelley & Kohnert, 2012), or possibly even
English phonological skills due to the phonological
overlap of cognates.
The specific aim of this investigation was to examine young ELL children’s performance on expressive picture-naming tasks comparing phonologically
similar English–Spanish cognates to phonologically
dissimilar English–Spanish noncognates. We asked the
following research questions:
• Is there a difference in ELL children’s picture
naming on cognates versus noncognates?
• Is there an association between cognate performance and child variables (e.g., age, nonverbal
IQ, phonological awareness subtest scores)?
Method
Participants. Thirty-one ELL children (15 girls, 16
boys) with a mean age of 68.9 months (SD = 8.8)
were included in the final sample. Most parents
completed a questionnaire on the child’s language
(e.g., age of exposure to each language), development, and home experiences (90% returned), with
follow-up phone inquiries for missing questionnaires.
Of completed questionnaires, the majority of the ELL
children’s parents reported that they were born in
Mexico (85%), and most of the children were born
in the United States (93%). All of the children had
significant exposure to English and Spanish either
through English instruction at school with English
and/or Spanish spoken at home or English instruction
at school with only Spanish spoken at home. Most
of the ELL children’s parents reported Spanish as the
home language (78%); however, the ELL children’s
parents reported that 42% of the children spoke only
Spanish at home, and 58% of the children spoke both
English and Spanish at home.
Language exposure and dominance is dynamic,
not static, which presents bilingual children as a
more heterogeneous population (Kan & Kohnert,
2005). For the current study, we defined exposure as
language input and/or output per parent report. For
Leacox et al.: Young Spanish–English Language Learners’ Cognate Facilitation
119
example, children who were exposed to English after
36 months and whose parents spoke only Spanish in
the home would be considered to have more Spanish
exposure. In cases where a child had at least one parent who spoke both English and Spanish in the home,
and parents reported child output in both languages,
then the child would have a more balanced exposure
to both languages.
Preschool attendance was 61%. All of the children received free or reduced lunch rates. For most
of the participants’ parents, education levels ranged
from 4th to 12th grade. All of the children passed a
hearing screening if the parents had reported hearing
concerns. This study was approved by Florida State
University’s Institutional Review Board.
Table 1 provides the ELL children’s scores from
the measures that were administered. The Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test—Fourth Edition (PPVT–4;
Dunn & Dunn, 2007) assesses children’s receptive
English vocabulary, requiring the child to point to
a picture from a field of four pictures, with high
alpha reliability coefficients on internal consistency
levels: .95–.96. The TVIP–H, which is the Spanish
adapted version of the PPVT–4, was used to examine the children’s Spanish receptive vocabulary. The
TVIP–H has normative data on Spanish monolingual
children, and its alpha reliability coefficients are
.91–.94. The Primary Test of Nonverbal Intelligence
(PTONI; Ehrler & McGhee, 2008) examines young
children’s reasoning abilities, with instructions provided in Spanish; alpha reliability coefficients were
.90–.92. The Phonological Awareness subtest from the
Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL; Lonigan,
Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 2002) assesses young
children’s early literacy skills across 27 items. The
reliability coefficients for internal consistency are
.87 and for test–retest reliability are .83. Normative
data are only available for children ages 3 to 5 years;
however, raw scores were examined. It is notable that
standardized monolingual tests may not be appropriate measures of bilinguals’ conceptual vocabulary
abilities (Kester & Peña, 2002), which may lead to
lower than average scores (Umbel et al., 1992); yet,
these assessments are used as indices of relative
standing for bilingual children as compared to their
monolingual peers.
Oversampling occurred; children were excluded
if (a) they demonstrated limited English or Spanish exposure (i.e., unable to complete criterion for
picture-naming practice items), (b) parents reported a
third language in the home, or (c) there were concerns about language difficulties. To screen for possible language impairment, the parent questionnaire
included questions concerning the child’s speech and
language skills as parent report provides contributing information about the identification of language
impairment (Restrepo, 1998). Two included children
presented with one late-developing speech-sound
error (i.e., interdental /s/); however, the error was
not a phonological disorder, and performance on a
vocabulary test and nonverbal intelligence test were
average or above average in their native language.
None of the included children was receiving speech,
language, or hearing services. The ELL children had
English-only speaking teachers who provided Englishonly instruction; however, to facilitate comprehensible
input, the classrooms had Spanish–English bilingual
assistants who provided basic directives and instruction in Spanish.
Cognate–Noncognate Tasks
We developed picture-naming tasks to examine the
children’s production of English–Spanish cognates
and noncognates. We defined cognates as phonologically similar words containing overlapping phonemes in English and Spanish that had equivalent
meanings (e.g., baby–bebé). Noncognates also had
a shared meaning but with limited or no phonological similarities (e.g., bear–oso). The picture stimuli
were dichotomized by COSP scores into cognates
(≥6 points) and noncognates (≤5 points), without
consideration to orthographic similarity (Kohnert
et al., 2004). Second, we obtained words from the
MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs; Fenson et al., 1993) in English and in
Spanish (Jackson-Maldonado et al., 2003), which are
a noted predictor of picture-naming abilities (Morrison, Ellis, & Quinlan, 1992; Windsor & Kohnert,
2004) and assess normal vocabulary acquisition from
language delays of young children. Pilot testing was
Table 1. Mean scores and standard deviations for the
descriptive measures.
Descriptive
measure
English language learners
n = 31
English receptive vocabularya
Spanish receptive vocabularyb
Nonverbal intelligencec
Phonological awareness (raw)d
M
SD
79.9
87.1
97.2
17.8
14.1
17.5
18.7
6.2
Note. All means and standard deviations were standard scores except for the Phonological Awareness subtests were raw scores.
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Fourth Edition; bTest de
Vocabulario en Imágenes de Peabody; cPrimary Test of Nonverbal Intelligence; dPhonological Awareness subtest of the Test of
Preschool Early Literacy.
a
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Disorders • Volume 43 • 115–128 • Spring 2016 completed with adults to assess feasibility, refine the
word list, and test the equipment.
Stimuli list. Twenty-four images (12 cognates, 12
noncognates) of concrete nouns were selected from a
standardized picture database of black line drawings
on white backgrounds (Abbate & La Chappelle, 1984a,
1984b; Snodgrass & Vanderwart, 1980). An early
childhood teacher, a certified speech-language pathologist, and one doctoral candidate reviewed an original
list of 18 items to identify 12 cognates that were appropriate for young children. Cognates were matched
pair-by-pair to noncognates first on word frequency
in English (Zeno et al., 1995) and then on number of
phonemes (length; Snodgrass & Yuditsky, 1996), for a
total of 12 pairs (sample in the Appendix).
Procedure. Each child was tested individually in
a quiet room. The child sat at a comfortable distance
from the computer screen. An initial practice required
the child to become familiar with quickly naming
four pictures (e.g., perro–dog, barco–boat, pie–foot,
casa–house) on the computer, with examiner feedback for correct answers (e.g., head nodding, “that’s
right”) and incorrect answers (e.g., “do you know the
word in [specified language]?”) after the child named
each picture. Then, the child had to name eight pictures without any feedback, except the initial instructions (e.g., “Now, name these pictures as best as you
can”); practice criterion was to name six out of eight
correct. If criterion was not met, the training was
re-administered for up to three opportunities. Practice
items were not included as experimental stimuli in
the picture-naming task.
Next, the ELL children completed two blocks
of picture naming in English (EPT = English picture-naming task) and in Spanish (SPT = Spanish
picture-naming task), in a counterbalanced order. The
language of the practice items matched the language
of the picture-naming block. Each picture-naming
block consisted of 24 trials in randomized order on a
Macintosh laptop computer with SuperLab 4 software
(Cedrus Corporation, 2011). On each trial, a bell ring
was presented to alert the child to a simultaneously
presented picture for the child to name; the child
had a 5500-ms display, or until a time response was
voice-activated. Within each randomized list, no more
than three words from the same semantic category
appeared in a row. Because matching stimuli on word
frequency and length can be challenging, the same 24
items were used in both blocks of picture naming.
An age- and gender-matched group of 31 English
monolingual children completed the picture-naming
task in English twice in order to address concerns for
a potential priming or repetition effect. The monolingual children demonstrated 91.5% reliability between
the two administrations, indicating approximately
22 agreements out of a possible 24 total items. A
paired-samples t test found no significant differences
on the overall accuracy, t = .278, p > .05, suggesting
minimal priming or repetition effect for the English
monolingual speakers. All of the picture-naming tasks
were videotaped. The computer software did not judge
naming accuracy. Thus, each picture-naming task was
scored by the first author using the video recording.
Scoring and Data Analyses
Mean accuracy data for the picture-naming tasks was
collected for each child. Picture-naming response
was scored using a scoring protocol based on picture-naming practices (Cycowicz, Friedman, Rothstein, & Snodgrass, 1997; Snodgrass & Vanderwart,
1980). Correct responses were accurate naming of
the pictures or alternate acceptable naming responses
(Cycowicz et al., 1997). Acceptable responses included changed morphemes (e.g., named grapes as
grape) and expanded label (e.g., named plato as
plato de comida). The three primary naming errors
were (a) incorrect or unacceptable label, (b) response
in the opposite language, or (c) no response or “I
don’t know”–“no sé.” Additional errors were lack of
specificity (e.g., named penguin as bird) and semantic errors (e.g., named spoon as toothbrush). Cognate
and noncognate pairs were counted. Analyses were
conducted using IBM SPSS V.22 statistical software.
Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d (1988).
Effect sizes were considered small if d is .02 or .03,
medium if d is approximately .5, and large if d is
greater than .8.
Reliability. A trained research assistant rescored
20% of all of the picture-naming tasks, with an interrater scoring reliability of 98%. To evaluate reliability
of the picture-naming task scores, 20% of the participants were re-administered the picture-naming tasks,
with reliability within acceptable limits (English =
83.2%; Spanish = 85.8%).
results
Picture Naming
The first research question asked whether there was a
difference in ELL children’s picture naming on cognates versus noncognates. Table 2 presents the ELL
children’s picture-naming percentage accuracy and
standard deviations. A repeated measures analysis of
variance (ANOVA) was conducted with two withinsubject variables: language (English, Spanish) and
cognate status (cognate, noncognate). Language did
not have a main effect, F(1, 30) = 0.917, p = 0.346,
Leacox et al.: Young Spanish–English Language Learners’ Cognate Facilitation
121
Figure 1. Mean percent accuracy in English and Spanish picture naming by cognate status (cognate vs. noncognate), with significant effects for cognate status (p <
.01) but not for language (p > .05).
Table 2. English language learners’ mean accuracy:
Cognate versus noncognate on two picture-naming
tasks.
Cognates
Noncognates
Task
M
SD
M
EPT
80.9%
17.0%
70.4%
SPT
76.3%
18.0%
66.0%
Cognate
difference
100
25.0%
11.0%*
80
20.2%
10.0%*
SD
Note. EPT = English picture-naming task, SPT = Spanish
picture-naming task.
90
70
Accuracy (%)
60
40
30
*p < .05.
Cognates
50
80.9
70.4
76.3
Noncognates
66
20
10
0
but cognate status had a significant main effect, F(1,
English
Spanish
30) = 22.558, p < .001. The language × cognate
status interaction effect was not significant, F(1,
30) = .001, p > .05. Main effects for cognate status
variables of age, nonverbal IQ, and phonological
showed that accuracy on cognates was significantly
Figure 1. Mean percent accuracy on English and Spanish picture naming by cognate status
awareness subtest scores (see Table 3). A significant
higher than accuracy on noncognates in EPT, F(1,
positive relationship
found
between
(cognate
with significantwas
effects
for cognate
statusage
(p <and
.01) but not for langua
30) = 14.923, p < .01, d = .748, and in SPT, F(1,
30) vs. noncognate)
Spanish picture-naming accuracy of noncognates (r =
= 20,186, p < .01, d = .850. Thus, ELL children’s
(p > .05).
.42, p < .05) and between PTONI standard scores and
performance accuracy was significantly higher on
English noncognate accuracy (r = .41, p < .05). On
cognates than on noncognates both in Spanish picture
the English Phonological Awareness subtest, signifinaming and in English picture naming. Accuracy for
cant positive correlations existed between the TOPEL
cognates and noncognates respectively was 80.9% and
raw scores and both the English cognates (r = .47,
70.4% on the EPT, and 76.3% and 66.0% on the SPT
p < .01) and the English noncognates (r = .54, p <
(represented in Figure 1).
.01).
Cognate–noncognate word pair item analysis.
On the EPT, as expected, the ELL children demIn order to investigate whether the target word was
onstrated high positive correlations on the PPVT–4
named accurately in both languages across translation
English vocabulary test with cognate (r = .62, p <
equivalents (e.g., plate–plato), we also calculated the
.01) and noncognate (r = .75, p < .001) accuracy. On
number of cognate and noncognate word pairs (e.g.,
the SPT, similarly, the ELL children had positive corUmbel et al., 1992). A total of 12 pair opportunities
relations on the TVIP–H Spanish vocabulary test with
for cognates and 12 pairs for noncognates was poscognate (r = .56, p < .001) and noncognate (r = .63,
sible. The ELL children named word pairs correctly
p < .001) accuracy.
in both Spanish and English: 56.7% of the time for
cognates (211/372 = 56.7; 372 = 12 stimulus translation paired-items × 31 participants), and 44.4% of
the time for noncognates (165/372). A paired-samples
discussion
t test found a significant difference between the
The purpose of this study was to examine young ELL
number of cognate word pairs and noncognate word
children’s performance on picture-naming tasks in
pairs, t = 5.019, p < .001. Divided across the 31
order to compare their performance on English–
participants, English–Spanish cognate pairs averaged
Spanish words, either cognates sharing or noncog6.8 (out of 12), and noncognate pairs averaged 5.3,
nates not sharing phonological overlap. We discuss
which equals approximately 1 to 1.5 cognate pairs
the higher cognate accuracy finding for ELL children
more than noncognate pairs.
with respect to previous vocabulary studies and theoretical and clinical considerations, as well as limitaCorrelations
tions and future study. Although a modest advantage,
higher cognate accuracy on young bilinguals’ picture
The second research question asked whether there
naming was a substantial finding that should be critiwas any correlation between the bilingual children’s
cally discussed.
performance on the picture-naming tasks and the child
122
Contemporary Issues
in
Communication Science
and
Disorders • Volume 43 • 115–128 • Spring 2016 Table 3. Pearson product–moment correlations among naming accuracy and descriptive measures.
Variable
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1. Cognate accuracy – Spanish
___
.68** .01
–.02
.29
–.11
.56** .05
2. Noncognate accuracy – Spanish ___
.00
–.05
.42* –.11
.63** .06
3. Cognate accuracy – English
___
.63** .14
.62** –.08
.26
4. Noncognate accuracy – English ___
.29
.75** –.17
.41*
5. Age (in months)
___
.08
.08
.23
6. PPVT–4
___
–.13
.47**
7. TVIP–H ___
.06
8. PTONI
___
9. TOPEL subtest 9
.22
.28
.47**
.54**
.59**
.54**
.23
.40*
___
Note. All means were standard scores except the Phonological Awareness subtest (raw scores) and English and Spanish naming accuracy (% correct).
*p < .05, **p < .01.
Previous Vocabulary Studies
The present study’s findings contradict those of the
original (1990s) studies with young bilingual children
of no cognate effect (e.g., Umbel et al., 1992), where
cognates and noncognates had similar accuracy percentages. This discrepancy in results may have been
due to differences in the assessment measure modality (i.e., expressive vs. receptive) or the level of
word difficulty. The present study used words from
a developmental word list for young children (i.e.,
CDIs), and most of the previous studies administered
standardized vocabulary tests that were not designed
to measure cognate status but increased word difficulty with successive items. However, the current
study’s outcomes are similar to more recent studies that suggest a cognate effect, where Pérez et al.
(2010) found that young kindergarten and first-grade
bilingual children demonstrated higher accuracy on
cognates over noncognates, even when using a standardized receptive vocabulary test (i.e., TOLD–P:3).
The current study’s results are also similar to
Schelletter (2002), who found a cognate effect on
an expressive picture-naming task with slightly older
children (i.e., 8- to 9-year-olds). A few differences exist between our study and Schelletter’s. This investigation expanded Schelletter’s findings by including more
participants (n = 31, n = 16) and increasing the age
range to include younger bilingual children. Another
difference was Schelletter’s definition of cognate’s
phonological overlap (i.e., 50% of similar phonemes);
more recent studies used a sensitive 10-point scale of
Spanish–English overlap, but similar results were still
found. Although previous research examined cognates
with older and younger children, the present study
was the first to investigate cognates in the expressive
domain with younger bilingual children.
We also found evidence that a cognate effect existed in both languages (Spanish and English), which
corresponded to Schelletter’s (2002) findings with a
cognate effect in English and German. Interestingly,
few studies have looked for a cognate effect in both
languages with bilingual children. The cognate effect
may be present in both languages as children transition from language dominance in their first language
to language dominance in their second language. It is
common for bilingual children in the United States to
demonstrate a developmental linguistic shift between
language dominance in their first language to their
second language from early childhood development to
middle childhood up and through adulthood (Kohnert et al., 1999). A cognate effect in both languages
requires further investigation but adds an important
construct to theoretical bilingual models when including young children and the transition of language
dominance.
Overall, limited significant associations were
determined with nonverbal IQ, age, and vocabulary.
Age was correlated with noncognate picture naming in Spanish, but not in English; nonverbal IQ was
correlated with English noncognate picture naming
and PPVT–4 performance. These findings are dissimilar to Kelley and Kohnert (2012), who examined
individual effects of a cognate advantage with older
students (ages 8–13), where some older bilingual
children demonstrated a cognate advantage, but not
all students. Kelley and Kohnert found that age significantly predicted 26% of the variance on a cognate
advantage for an English vocabulary test, and nonverbal IQ approached significance and would have
contributed 9% of the variance.
Cognates may have a closer relationship with
metacognitive abilities for older students, which may
explain age and an approaching significance for
Leacox et al.: Young Spanish–English Language Learners’ Cognate Facilitation
123
nonverbal IQ in Kelley and Kohnert’s (2012) study.
For younger children, it is possible that other individual factors influence cognate status. Correlational
analyses showed that ELL children’s English vocabulary had a significant positive association to picture
naming of both cognates and noncognates, which may
have been due to the less difficult word selection.
Pérez et al. (2010) found that kindergarten and firstgrade children’s exposure to Spanish was associated
with their recognition of English cognates of Spanish
words.
Additionally, we noted that the overall picturenaming percentages of cognates and noncognates
combined were higher on English naming (80.9%)
than on Spanish naming (76.3%), even though the
TVIP–H standard scores were overall higher than the
PPVT–4 standard scores. This observation could be
due to the high frequency and early acquisition of the
selected picture-naming items and may have impacted
correlations not found in previous studies. Because
prior investigations primarily used standardized vocabulary tests, a higher range of item difficulty may
also have altered associations.
which is suggested to lead to higher accuracy (Kohnert et al., 2004; Sunderman & Schwartz, 2008). Although previous theoretical models were reserved for
bilingual adults, the word production model provides
initial support that even young bilingual children
have cross-linguistic transfer or influence between
languages.
Clinical considerations. This study’s findings
contribute to clinical implications in speech-language
pathology. First, clinicians should note children’s
accuracy on cognates. Cognate status may contribute
to the difficulty level of items on vocabulary tests,
which would relate to basal and ceiling rules. Thus,
bilingual assessments could involve administering
test items above the recommended ceiling to examine
ELL children’s total performance (Pérez et al., 2010).
Cognate status should be taken into consideration
as well when making baseline probes for treatment.
Higher cognate accuracy on baseline probes has been
found in a case study with a bilingual poststroke
adult (Kohnert, 2004) and a bilingual child with
speech-sound disorders (Leacox, 2013).
A second important clinical consideration may be
to provide additional time for word retrieval and/or
to consider phonemic cueing as a form of dynamic
assessment. Although each picture-naming task was
blocked to a single language, the primary investigator
noted anecdotally that several children demonstrated
activation of the opposite language. For example,
one child produced the initial onset of a word in
one language, stopped, and then produced the word
in the other language (e.g., target Spanish word was
silla = chair: “ch-silla”). Children also named complete words in the opposing target language before
realizing their error; it appeared that some children
were cognizant of the wrong language choice error
and then self-corrected (e.g., “chair…silla”); others
were not. These errors exemplify how young children appear to have both languages activated at least
to some degree. These errors are not uncommon in
the literature and are evident even with trilingual
speakers who demonstrate multilanguage activation
(Francis & Gallard, 2005). Bilinguals are more likely
to demonstrate a “tip of tongue” experience, where
difficulty is noted in verbal retrieval of a word even
though the speaker usually can produce the intended
word (Harley, 2008).
Theoretical and Clinical Considerations
Theoretical model. The children’s picture-naming
results in our study demonstrated both a higher accuracy on cognates over noncognates as well as a
higher percentage of accurate cognate word pairs
(i.e., doublet) where a child names the word correctly
in both languages (e.g., plate–plato). These findings
are congruent with the word production model (Garrett, 1975, 1976) that is used with bilingual adults,
suggesting a cascaded or simultaneous activation of
the phonological characteristics of the word. This
representational overlap may facilitate acquisition.
Kan and Kohnert (2005) found that an older
group of Hmong–English speakers (M = 5;0) had
more doublets than a younger group did; however,
the cognates were not examined because cognates
may be difficult to find between Hmong and English
(Vang, 2005). It is possible the similar phonological overlap facilitates the acquisition of learning a
word, which contributes to a bilingual child’s doublet
vocabulary. Umbel et al. (1992) only examined approximately 15% of the sample of correct doublets
to investigate a cognate effect; it is possible that a
complete analysis would lead to alternate results.
When a child knows a word in Spanish, perhaps
fewer exposures are required to learn a cognate word
in English because the phonologically similar word
representation is already present. Corresponding with
previous research, cognate facilitation exists for bilinguals on words with higher phonological overlap,
124
Contemporary Issues
in
Communication Science
Limitations and Future Directions
One limitation of this study was the sample’s variability. The Spanish–English bilingual population is
heterogeneous, with various cultural and linguistic
differences and varying levels of exposure to each
language (Goldstein, 2000). Many times, researchers
and
Disorders • Volume 43 • 115–128 • Spring 2016 dichotomize bilinguals into subgroups of sequential
or simultaneous, additive or subtractive, or high/low
language proficiency levels. Pérez et al. (2010) created three subgroups of “high English exposure,”
“balanced exposure,” and “high Spanish exposure.”
The present study included both simultaneous learners (e.g., one parent spoke only Spanish, one parent
spoke Spanish and English) where English exposure
began at relatively the same time as Spanish exposure. Some children did not begin speaking English
until formal English instruction began at around
3 to 5 years of age. The sample defined “young”
children as being 3 to 6 years old, which may have
also added to group variability. Second, the present
study did not directly address any confounds of low
socioeconomic status. The sample was collected in
one of the more underresourced counties in northern
Florida. Although socioeconomic status is a multifactored construct, a low socioeconomic status has
been associated with differences in vocabulary (Hart
& Risley, 1995). The present study’s group of young
Spanish-speaking ELL children represented a heterogeneous sample of bilingual children from lower
socioeconomic backgrounds.
Lastly, although cognates demonstrated a positive cognate effect, the findings were modest. When
comparing the number of Spanish–English correct
cognate pairs to correct noncognate pairs, cognate
doublets had approximately 1 to 1.5 translation pairs
more than noncognate pairs. Although a seemingly
small advantage, findings were similar to Pérez et al.
(2010), which showed a 1 to 3.8 word advantage, and
Schelletter (2002), who reported only a slight advantage for form similarity (i.e., cognates) on bilingual
children’s picture naming. It may be that cognates only
contribute a small portion to bilingual vocabulary development during the early years of acquisition. Given
the emphasis on closing the gap in vocabulary learning for ELL children (e.g., Carlo et al., 2004), even
small contributions to vocabulary and bridges between
languages warrant further investigation.
Future studies can further investigate the influence of vocabulary words’ cognate status. For example, a cognate sensitivity test for young ELL children
could potentially be another indicator of language
ability. Similar to the cognitive flexibility of codeswitching between African American English and
Standard American English dialects (Terry, Connor,
Thomas-Tate, & Love, 2010), sensitivity to cognate
status may be an indicator of a similar cognitive–
linguistic flexibility or vocabulary skills. The Cognate
Awareness Test (August et al., 2001) was developed
to assess older children’s awareness to cognates
during reading comprehension. Given that the present study’s task was relatively brief to administer (5
to 10 min), further revisions to create an informal
assessment tool for younger children would be a
feasible and interesting option. Additionally, future
studies may investigate how to maximize this magnitude for cognates by using expanded assessment tools
(Malabonga et al., 2008) or even providing brief or
extended instruction on cognates, as has been done
with older children (Carlo et al., 2004; Nagy et al.,
1993; Proctor & Mo, 2009).
In conclusion, young ELL children demonstrate
awareness and sensitivity to words with higher
degrees of phonological overlap rather than lesser degrees of overlap. Although previous studies have examined vocabulary tests, few are specifically designed
to examine cognates in an expressive picture-naming
task with young ELL children. The linguistic overlap
of cognates necessitates further investigation. From
the 1990s research suggesting that young children do
not perform differently on cognates, the present study
aligns with recent findings that even young children
in preschool and early elementary school are sensitive
to phonologically similar cognates.
Acknowledgments
We sincerely appreciate the teachers and staff at Panhandle Area Educational Consortium for Migrant Education
and at Leon and Gadsden County who facilitated our access
for assessing participants. Special thanks to Maria Pouncey,
Director of the Panhandle Area Educational Consortium;
research assistant Kelly Worthington; and Marcy Vensel.
This research was based on a portion of the first author’s
dissertation and was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Education personnel preparation project at Florida
State University, H325D070021.
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Contact author: Lindsey Leacox, 230 Communication Arts Center, Cedar Falls, IA 50614. E-mail: lindsey.
[email protected]
Appendix. Sample Word Stimuli for Picture Naming
Cognates
Noncognates
Target
words
COSP #Phon
Freq
Eng
Age of
acquisition
Span (1–10) Eng Span Eng Span
flower flor
plate plato
baby
bebé
7
7
8
5
4
4
4
5
4
40
49
113
33.04
30.89
16.96
Eng
1
1
1
Target
words
COSP
#Phon
Freq
Eng
Span
(1–10)
apple manzana
finger dedo
eye
ojo
2
2
1
Age of
acquisition
Eng Span
Eng
Span
Eng
4
5
1
39
49
125
11.07
50.89
71.25
1
1
1
7
4
3
Note. The complete picture-naming task stimuli included 24 words (12 cognates, 12 noncognates). COSP = Crosslinguistic
Overlap Scale for Phonology (Kohnert et al., 2004). Sources were word frequency (English: Zeno et al., 1995; Spanish: Davis & Perea, 2005) and age of acquisition (CDI; Fenson et al., 1993).
128
Contemporary Issues
in
Communication Science
and
Disorders • Volume 43 • 115–128 • Spring 2016