title: An Investigation of Language Environment Analysis Measures for Spanish-English Bilingual Preschoolers From Migrant Low-Socioeconomic-Status Backgrounds.
abstract: The current study was designed to (a) describe average hourly Language Environment Analysis (LENA) data for preschool-age Spanish-English bilinguals (SEBs) and typically developing monolingual peers and (b) compare LENA data with mean length of utterance in words (MLUw) and total number of words (TNW) calculated on a selected sample of consecutive excerpts of audio files (CEAFs).
  
  
  
  Investigators examined average hourly child vocalizations from daylong LENA samples for 42 SEBs and 39 monolingual English-speaking preschoolers. The relationship between average hourly child vocalizations, conversational turns, and adult words from the daylong samples and MLUw from a 50-utterance CEAF was examined and compared between groups.
  
  
  
  MLUw, TNW, average hourly child vocalizations, and conversational turns were lower for young SEBs than monolingual English-speaking peers. Average hourly child vocalizations were not strongly related to MLUw performance for monolingual or SEB participants (r = .29, r = .25, respectively). In a similar manner, average hourly conversational turns were not strongly related to MLUw for either group (r = .22, r = .21, respectively).
  
  
  
  Young SEBs from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds showed lower average performance on LENA measures, MLUw, and TNW than monolingual English-speaking peers. MLUw from monolinguals were also lower than typical expectations when derived from CEAFs. LENA technology may be a promising tool for communication sampling with SEBs; however, more research is needed to establish norms for interpreting MLUw and TNW from selected CEAF samples.
authors.forename: Carla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: Emily A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Diehm
authors.forename: Maya F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Callender
mesh_terms: D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D012574:Schools; D012923:Social Class; D012931:Social Environment; D013060:Speech; D014171:Transients and Migrants / Q000523:psychology