Research on the associations between refugee children’s socioemotional development and bilingual outcomes is limited, although this population has unique migration experiences that could affect such development. This study examined Syrian refugee children’s socioemotional development, including well-being difficulties and acculturation, 4.5 years after their resettlement in Canada (N = 112; mean age = 11.97). It also investigated how socioemotional development was associated with refugee children’s bilingual outcomes in English and Arabic. The findings suggested that, although the children were developing an integration orientation of acculturation, a large proportion of them reported well-being difficulties. Socioemotional development had both direct and mediated associations with bilingual outcomes: children’s identification with Syrian culture influenced English outcomes positively, and their enjoyment of Arabic language activities influenced Arabic outcomes positively. Children’s enjoyment of Arabic language activities was related to less sibling interaction in English, which, in turn, was negatively associated with English outcomes. Somewhat similarly, identification with Canadian culture was related to less parent interaction in Arabic, which was negatively associated with Arabic outcomes. Well-being difficulties were negatively associated with outcomes in both languages. We conclude that refugee children are faced with unique challenges in their socioemotional development, which in turn influences their bilingual outcomes.

Using a meta-analytic approach, we evaluate the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and children's experiences measured with the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. Our final analysis included 22 independent samples, representing data from 1583 children. A model controlling for LENATM measures, age and publication type revealed an effect size of rz= .186, indicating a small effect of SES on children's language experiences. The type of LENA metric measured emerged as a significant moderator, indicating stronger effects for adult word counts than child vocalization counts. These results provide important evidence for the strength of association between SES and children's everyday language experiences as measured with an unobtrusive recording analyzed automatically in a standardized fashion.

Maternal depression and anxiety are potential risk factors to children's language environments and development. Though existing work has examined relations between these constructs, further work is needed accounting for both depression and anxiety and using more direct measures of the home language environment and children's language development. We examined 265 mother-infant dyads (49.6% female, Mage = 17.03 months) from a large city in the Western United States to explore the relations between self-reports of maternal depression and anxiety and observational indices of the home language environment and expressive language as captured by Language Environment Analysis (LENA) and parent-reported language comprehension and production. Results revealed maternal depressive symptoms to be negatively associated with home language environment and expressive language indices. Maternal anxiety symptoms were found to be negatively associated with children's parent-reported language production. These findings provide further evidence that maternal mental health modulates children's home language environments and expressive language.

Previous research has suggested that the language development of bilingual children benefits from more exposure and opportunities for language use. Typically, this research has used aggregated measures of exposure and use. The role of specific interlocutors and in particular older siblings has received comparatively little attention. In this study, we examine the impact of having an older sibling on the language environment and language development of a group of 31 bilingual Greek–Dutch toddlers aged 16 to 30 months growing up in the Netherlands. Approximately half (n = 14) of the toddlers had an older sibling. With respect to language environment, toddlers with older siblings were in general found to hear and use more Dutch at home than their first-born peers. There were however no differences between the two groups of toddlers in terms of parental language use. With respect to language development, toddlers with older siblings were found to score higher than first-born peers on measures of Dutch receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, and morphosyntactic complexity. For Greek, no such differences were observed. The findings are discussed in light of factors including family constellation, parental language proficiency, bilingual parenting strategies, and the wider sociolinguistic context.