title: The Dimensionality of Spanish in Young Spanish-English Dual-Language Learners.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study examined the latent dimensionality of Spanish in young Spanish-English dual-language learners (DLLs).
  
  
  METHODS
  Two hundred eighty-six children participated. In their prekindergarten year, children completed norm-referenced and experimental language measures in Spanish requiring different levels of cognitive processing in both receptive and expressive language modalities.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The best-fitting model suggested a bifactor solution with a single general language factor L plus two additional factors word knowledge and integrative language knowledge. The general trait L reflects the proportion of common item variance for all of the items, and the group traits of word knowledge and integrative language knowledge explain additional domain-specific variance for those item subsets.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results suggest that the Spanish language in preschool-age Spanish-English DLLs is not separable into content, form, and use, nor is it separable by higher- and lower-level language domains or processing demands. Instead it appears that a general language factor underlies oral language in Spanish in DLL preschoolers and that other factors account for additional variance over and above L. Findings are discussed in relation to a companion study of monolingual English-speaking prekindergarteners.
mesh_terms: D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D019303:Multilingualism