Phonological Awareness Skills in the Two Languages of Mandarin-English Bilingual Children

A number of studies have shown that bilingual children have an advantage when performing on phonological awareness tasks, particularly in their stronger language. Little research has been done to date, examining the effects of bilingualism on both languages of bilingual children. In this study Mandarin-English bilingual children's performance on phonological awareness tests was compared with that of Mandarin monolingual children and English monolingual children. The Mandarin-English bilinguals performed better than English monolinguals on the Elision and Blending sub-tests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). Similarly, Mandarin-English bilinguals also performed better than their Mandarin monolingual counterparts on most of the experimental Mandarin phonological awareness tasks. The results from the study are discussed in terms of the effects of bilingualism on phonological awareness in both languages of bilingual children. Further clinical and educational implications of these results are also discussed.