# Validating new measures of later language development for Spanish-English bilinguals

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2020 · $71,306

## Abstract

Strong language skills are foundational for the development of literacy. This project investigates how
grammatical development relates to literacy development in 9- to 10-year-old monolingual Spanish,
monolingual English, and Spanish-English bilingual children by assessing comprehension of complex
grammatical structures mastered through increased exposure to written language at school. To appropriately
measure children's later grammatical development we need specific and theoretically-motivated diagnostic
tests of complex syntactic knowledge, which we currently lack. Existing tools normed for monolingual English
and Spanish do not assess complex syntax adequately, and schools lack precise measures of grammatical
development they can use to identify the factors contributing to children's language and literacy outcomes.
Valid assessment instruments are vital to advance research and educational practices with typically-developing
monolingual and bilingual speakers schooled in one or two languages. Our innovation is the creation of new
theoretically-motivated linguistic measures in Spanish and English informed by linguistic theory and language
acquisition research to assess auditory comprehension of complex grammatical structures in Spanish and
English that are crucial for literacy development. The goal of this project is to validate new picture-based
comprehension tasks with 100 monolingual and 50 bilingual speakers of Spanish and of English, 9- to10-year
old (75 children, 75 adults). Specific Aim 1 examines the validity of the new language measures in Spanish
testing verbal passives, relative clauses, and pronoun interpretation and their relationship to global proficiency,
literacy and cognitive measures. Specific Aim 2 examines the validity of the new measures in English testing
the same structures. To examine criterion-related validity, scores on the new language tasks will be correlated
with established global proficiency measures--the three Spanish and three English subtests from the
Woodcock Johnson IV Tests of Oral Language, and established literacy measures: the passage
comprehension and reading fluency sections in Spanish from the Batería III Woodcock-Muñoz, and the
equivalent English subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson IV Achievement Test. To determine whether potential
difficulty with complex grammar comprehension by the bilingual children is related to phonological working
memory or to incomplete acquisition of Spanish and/or English, performance on the new linguistic tasks will be
correlated with scores on established cognitive measures of executive functioning and phonological working
memory. Once validated, our new linguistically informed tests will allow us to make progress methodologically
and theoretically, to understand typically-developing monolingual and dual language profiles, and to address
the inextricable links between complex grammar, cognitive functioning, and written language. The knowledge
gained from this project will be...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9978655
- **Project number:** 1R03HD099491-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Silvina A Montrul
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $71,306
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-06-01 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9978655

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9978655, Validating new measures of later language development for Spanish-English bilinguals (1R03HD099491-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9978655. Licensed CC0.

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