Bilingual Receptive Vocabulary in Hispanic Preschool Children

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Abstract
Hispanic preschoolers in Miami, who are economically and culturally similar to the generalpopulation, were tested on receptive vocabulary in English and Spanish. English scores, even for children from homes where some English is spoken, were more than one and a haif standard deviations below the mean. The Spanish mean, by contrast was 95, a small, though significant difference from the Spanish norm. Factors other than vocabulary knowledge that might account for the lower scores are exploredL These include a different order of item difficulty, the potentially inappropriate norming sample, and the underestimation of bilingual knowledge inherent in single-language measures.