The effects of heritage multilingualism on foreign language learning: a comparison of children with typical language development and developmental language disorder.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Both multilingualism and developmental language disorder (DLD) may be associated with inferior performance in the majority language, albeit for different reasons. At the same time, there is a growing body of evidence that multilingualism may have a positive effect on foreign language performance. This study tests the hypothesis that the positive effects of multilingualism on foreign language learning may be smaller in children with DLD compared to their multilingual peers with typical language development.

Methods

In a 2 × 2 design, we compare the effects of multilingualism and DLD on English as a foreign language performance and majority language performance of multilinguals and monolinguals with and without DLD. The participants were primary school children (a

SUBMITTER: Tribushinina E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11774774 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature