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Funded Projects
VOLAR - Vocabulary and Oral Language for Academic Readiness
(IES, Summer 2006-2009)
- Develop an oral language intervention for Spanish-speaking preschool children with language disorders to increase vocabulary, MLU and comprehension through literacy and hands-on activities
- Compare experimental and control interventions in English-only and in bilingual conditions
- Evaluate the impact of the intervention in language, academic, social, and cognitive areas
VALE - Vocabulary and Abstract Language Enhancement Intervention in Kindergarten to improve reading comprehension by third grade bilingual Latino children
(IES, 2005-2008)
- Develop a book reading and hands-on language intervention for Spanish-speaking kindergarten children to improve reading comprehension in 2nd and 3rd grade
- Compare experimental and control interventions in English-only and in bilingual conditions
- Teach eight tier-2 vocabulary words and 4 comprehension techniques a week
- Follow the children through third grade
PAVEd For Success- Phonemic Awareness and Vocabulary Enhancement
(Completed at UGA, US Dept. of Education)
- Preliteracy training for preschool teachers
- Evaluated the training through preliteracy skills assessment of 500 children
- 80 Latino children received bilingual or English-only language intervention
- Results - Bilingual intervention resulted in growth in native language MLU, subordination index and alphabet; English-only intervention resulted in stagnated native language development (2003 results - PDF) (2004 results - PDF).
Children’s story and expository book
retellings to their parents:
Angel’s Kite Water as Gas Diego
(View Story) (View Story) (View Story)
retellings to their parents:
Angel’s Kite Water as Gas Diego
(View Story) (View Story) (View Story)
Ongoing or Future Student Projects
Language Elicitation
- What techniques in language sampling lead to more sensitive assessments of syntactic and grammatical development in Spanish-speaking and bilingual children?
Home Literacy
- Are there cross-cultural differences in home literacy practices across low maternal education in African-American, Latino, and European-American children’s families?
Identifiers of Language Disorders
- What are the best methods to identify disorders in Spanish-speaking and bilingual children?
- What are the characteristics of bilingual children with language disorders?
Language Loss in Bilingual Children with Language Disorders
- What are the language changes in Spanish-speaking children with SLI who attend English-only contexts programs?
Oral Language and Literacy Development
- See PAVE, VALE and VOLAR grants on impact of language of intervention in native language and English skills