Abstract

This book sets a high standard for rigor and scientific approach to the study of bilingualism and provides new insights regarding the critical issues of theory and practice, including the interdependence of linguistic knowledge in bilinguals, the role of socioeconomic status, the effect of different language usage patterns in the home, and the role of schooling by single-language immersion as opposed to systematic training in both home and target languages. The rich landscape of outcomes reported in the volume will provide a frame for interpretation and understanding of effects of bilingualism for years to come.

D. Kimbrough Oller, is Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology.  He is author of over 150 articles in language and speech, and an international authority in language learning.  His research on English and Spanish-learning children as well as bilingual children is widely published, and his earlier book The Emergence of the Speech Capacity brings together results of his research of thirty years.

Rebecca E. Eilers is Professor of Psychology and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Maine.  For nearly thirty years she has been a leading figure in infant speech perception and young child language as the primary author of a substantial literature on development of linguistic capabilities in children with Spanish and/or English in the home.