| Many adults who have dual language experience describe themselves as "passive bilinguals," able to understand two languages, but speak only one. The aim of this study was to examine the relation between language production and comprehension in bilingual children in order to determine whether bilingual comprehension is more readily achieved than production. Participants were 86 2½-year-old Spanish-English bilingual children (36 boys, 50 girls, M age = 30.71 months). Productive and receptive skills in both languages were assessed using standardized tests. Children's relative amount of exposure to each language, as well as their language choice during production was measured via interview with the primary caregiver. Hierarchical regressions revealed that the relation between exposure and productive language is linear, while the relation between exposure and receptive language has a significant quadratic function. Moreover, language exposure as measured via dominance in one language over another appears to affect productive language differently than receptive language, further evidencing that language exposure is a significant predictor of acquisition that predicts production and comprehension differently. Additionally, when input is held constant, child language choice is uniquely related to productive and receptive language skill. The results of this study not only describe patterns of productive and receptive language skills and their correlates in young bilinguals, but they also address competing theories regarding the roles of input and output in the development of language comprehension and production. |
