Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2014) 693–698 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Early Childhood Research Quarterly Review The development and early care and education of dual language learners: Examining the state of knowledge Dina C Castro ∗ University of North Texas, College of Education, 1155 Union Circle #310740, Denton, TX 76203-5017, United States a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Available online 21 August 2014 Keywords: Dual language learners Bilingual development Dual language learner research Research review a b s t r a c t Early care and education (ECE) programs, policymakers and practitioners across the United States are facing the reality of the increase in the population of dual language learners (DLLs) To address these children’s unique and varied characteristics and experiences, ECE programs find that they must adjust and adapt their efforts However, there is limited evidence for early childhood strategies to support DLLs and limited understanding of DLLs’ development There are increased accountability requirements for ECE programs to meet the needs of all children, including DLLs This special section “The Development and Early Care and Education of Dual Language Learners: Examining the State of Knowledge” includes six articles reporting on the research activities of the Center for Early Care and Education Research – Dual Language Learners (CECER-DLL) The Center was federally funded to advance the research field to improve assessment, child care, and education for DLLs from birth through five years of age This introduction and commentary discusses the most relevant findings from the set of critical reviews of literature and the secondary analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort conducted by the Center Also, the major methodological challenges and research gaps found in the literature reviewed, across topic areas, are presented and recommendations for future directions to advance research on the development and early care and education of DLLs are provided © 2014 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved Contents Introduction Developmental characteristics of dual language learners The early education experiences of dual language learners Methodological issues in DLL research Defining who is a DLL and determining DLL status Information about DLLs and their families Study design and sample sizes Language of assessment Gaps and future research directions Disclaimer Acknowledgements References Introduction Understanding the developmental characteristics and the early care and education experiences of dual language learners (DLLs) has become a critical issue for researchers, policymakers, and educators ∗ Corresponding author Tel.: +1 9405652590; fax: +1 9405654952 E-mail address: dina.castro@unt.edu http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2014.08.003 0885-2006/© 2014 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved 693 694 695 695 696 696 696 696 696 697 697 698 in the field of early childhood for several reasons First, changes in the demographic composition of the children and families served in early care and education programs across the United States are large and not reversible (Hernandez, Macartney, & Denton, 2010) The number of children growing up in bilingual environments has steadily increased in the past two decades and this growth is expected to continue (Suárez-Orozco & Páez, 2008) Dual language learners are diverse in many respects: their families have different countries of origin, with the majority of them coming from 694 D.C Castro / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2014) 693–698 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (Hernandez et al., 2010); most but not all are children of immigrants; children in American Indian communities who speak their native languages are also part of the DLL population; for children of immigrants, their families may have diverse immigration experiences; and they also are diverse in terms of other demographic characteristics such as socioeconomic status and parental education Second, as young dual language learners transition from early education contexts into K-12 learning environments, they lag behind their monolingual English-speaking peers in their school readiness (Reardon & Galindo, 2006) Considering what is known about the academic and social benefits, and long-lasting positive impact of high-quality early care and education experiences on children’s later school success (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001; Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002), it is essential that researchers, practitioners, and policy makers be concerned about the early care and education of children from linguistically and culturally diverse families Furthermore, learning about the diversity within the DLL population, the particular features of DLLs’ development and the type and quality of their early care and education experiences can be valuable to understand what these children need to develop to their full potential and thus, be on the path to success in school and in life Third, accountability requirements have increased in early care and education at the federal and state levels Early childhood programs are accountable for providing high quality care and education to all the children they serve It is expected that participation in those ECE experiences will contribute to reduce the school readiness gap affecting the most vulnerable children The Office of Head Start Monitoring Process at the federal level and Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) implemented by many states around the nation have developed a number of indicators to assess ECE programs’ performance However, indicators that focus on assessing whether the care and education needs of DLL children and their families are being met are still limited or not present One of the challenges to identify appropriate indicators of quality for DLLs’ ECE is the limited understanding about the development of young DLLs and their experiences within their family and ECE settings This special section of Early Childhood Research Quarterly is dedicated to discussing some of the work conducted by the Center for Early Care and Education Research – Dual Language Learners (CECER-DLL) over the past five years An important goal of the CECER-DLL was to advance the research field by critically examining and synthesizing the current state of knowledge about the development and the early care and education experiences of dual language learners from birth to five years of age The expectation was to provide the field with much needed information to advance ECE research with DLLs, that could ultimately be used to develop policies and practices that respond to the characteristics and needs of these children The CECER-DLL was a cooperative agreement (#90YR0041/01) funded in 2009 by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation at the Administration for Children and Families, U.S Department of Health and Human Services to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Collaborations were established with universities and non-academic research organizations from throughout the United States, with the goal of involving researchers from various disciplines who had the appropriate expertise to conduct Center activities The work of the Center was implemented in three phases: (1) establishing the state of knowledge about DLLs’ development and ECE experiences; (2) developing a conceptual framework and tools to improve future research about DLLs and their families; and, (3) conducting a study, based on the conceptual framework, to validate the newly developed research tools The articles in this special issue report findings from the first phase of the CECER-DLL work, which included critical reviews of the literature and a secondary analysis of a national dataset Reviews of the literature were conducted on DLLs’ language and literacy, cognitive and socio-emotional development, as well as their early education experiences and the use of classroom quality measures in programs serving DLLs A set of rigorous criteria was developed to be used across all review topics; some adjustments were made as needed depending on the particular state of research on certain topic areas The main common inclusion criteria included: research focusing on dual language learners exclusively, or studies including a separate analysis of dual language learner outcomes when they were part of a broader study; published in peer-reviewed journals during 2000–2011; including DLLs from birth to age five, studies that included older children or were longitudinal included at least one assessment of DLLs before age Findings from a secondary analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort focusing on DLLs’ developmental outcomes are also reported in this special section To the best of our knowledge, it is the first analysis conducted with this nationally representative dataset that examines DLLs’ outcomes specifically This analysis was designed considering the heterogeneity of the DLL population and the complexities of their life circumstances Nationally and internationally recognized experts in the fields of bilingual development and early care and education of DLLs were invited to participate in the research teams that conducted these reviews and secondary analysis The research-related work of the CECER-DLL has produced a number of conceptual and empirical research products that can inform current federal, state and local ECE policies All together, these findings constitute the most current research evidence available on this topic In the next paragraphs, I will highlight the most relevant findings from the reports presented in this Special Section organized in two areas: DLL’s developmental characteristics and DLLs’ early education experiences I will then discuss the methodological challenges identified across the various reviews of research, and summarize the major gaps and directions for future research on this topic Developmental characteristics of dual language learners One of the conclusions from the body of research examined by the CECER-DLL is the affirmation that the dual language learner population is not a homogeneous group, to the contrary, it is very diverse in languages, national origin, immigration experiences, demographic characteristics, and early learning opportunities All of these factors make a difference in their development and school readiness (Winsler et al., 2014, in this issue) The association between socioeconomic status and children’s development has long been established in the research literature However, in many studies examining DLLs’ development and school readiness, the role of socioeconomic status has been confounded with children’s bilingual condition The secondary analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort conducted by the CECER-DLL examined this issue and concluded that family demographics (income and education) seem to play a larger role in explaining developmental outcomes among DLLs than the fact that the children are growing up with two languages (Winsler et al., 2014, in this issue) Similarly, Halle et al (2014, in this issue) concluded that family socioeconomic status explained more of the variance in some of children’ socio-emotional outcomes than their DLL status These findings indicate that DLLs are not “at risk” because they are growing up in bilingual environments; they may certainly be at risk, but mostly due to factors associated with living in poverty These reviews provide evidence that the development of dual language learners differs from monolinguals’ development in several ways, and that the bilingual condition affects many domains of development For example, Barac, Bialystok, Castro, and Sánchez D.C Castro / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2014) 693–698 (2014, in this issue) concluded that “the experience with two languages changes the cognitive system from very early on.” Furthermore, there is robust evidence that the bilingual advantage in children’s cognitive development can be detected as early as the first year of life, and is found in particular in executive control Typically developing bilingual children show more advanced skills than their monolingual peers in non-verbal executive control skills (inhibitory control; cognitive flexibility; working memory) Related to language development, Hammer, Hoff, Uchikoshi, Gillanders, and Castro (2014, in this issue) concluded that DLLs have two separate language systems from very early in life, with the two languages influencing each other Young children have the capacity to learn more than one language, and that process does not confuse children or hinder their English language development if there is sufficient and high-quality exposure to both languages Differences between monolingual and bilingual children’s language development have been found in early language processing, phonological development, and vocabulary size (Hammer, Hoff, et al., 2014, in this issue), and those appear to be associated with the amount of exposure children have to each language Another important finding involves the role of strong abilities in children’s first or heritage language to facilitate English language development for DLLs A related finding shows that the use of the heritage language by the family and children’s bilingualism can act as a protective factor for dual language learners in immigrant families This was seen in the form of associations between heritage language use and several positive DLLs’ developmental outcomes found in the analysis of the ECLS-B data (Winsler et al., 2014) Bilingualism is also related to some aspects of DLLs’ socio-emotional development For instance, DLLs have shown higher levels of self-control and lower levels of problem behaviors as compared to their English monolingual peers, although, findings are not consistent across studies (Halle et al., 2014, in this issue) These, among other findings reported in this set of articles, indicate that bilingualism has no inherent negative consequences for children’s development; on the contrary, it may benefit young children, cognitively, linguistically, and socially Related to early care and education practice, the research reviewed provides evidence that supports the need for practices that are tailored to DLLs’ developmental characteristics shifting away from assuming that DLLs’ development is necessarily the same as monolinguals The early education experiences of dual language learners The work of the CECER-DLL also included critical reviews of research on early education approaches and practices targeting dual language learners, as well as an examination of the use of quality measures in classrooms/programs serving DLLs Studies reviewed related to early care and education of DLLs included various types of interventions (e.g., programmatic, language and literacy curriculum and instructional practices, professional development), language(s) used in the intervention (e.g., English only, bilingual transitional), and intensity (e.g., daily lessons for 16 weeks) In spite of the small number of studies that meet inclusion criteria, there are some relevant conclusions that can inform current policy and practice One of those findings relates to participation in early education programs being beneficial for DLLs This finding confirms similar conclusions from previous reviews of research with school-age children (August & Shanahan, 2006) indicating that participation in high-quality schooling is beneficial for DLLs However, research evidence for preschool-aged DLLs is not as clear and definite about instructional approaches and practices targeting these children’ specific needs (Buysse, Peisner-Feinberg, Páez, Hammer, & Knowles, 2014, in this issue) Research exists examining the efficacy of ECE interventions with 695 DLLs, but the number of studies is small and thus, it does not provide strong evidence in favor of one particular approach The studies reviewed suggest that English-only interventions support gains in English language and literacy abilities of DLLs, and that interventions that use the children’s first language not negatively affect their English acquisition However, whether home language loss occurs as a consequence of attendance in English-only classrooms and if so, its implications for children’s academic performance and socio-emotional development have not been examined much The assessment of the quality of early education practices has become a significant issue in the field given the increased accountability requirements at the federal and state levels (Mitchell, 2009; Office of Head Start, 2011) Since the early 80’s, a number of instruments have been developed to measure program/classroom quality, most of them from the perspective of the early education needs of monolingual children More recently, quality assessment measures have been developed that focus specifically on the characteristics and needs of dual language learners (Castro, Espinosa, & Páez, 2011) As discussed above, the diversity among children served in ECE classrooms has increased dramatically and it will continue to increase in the upcoming years Thus, to fulfill the goal of providing high-quality early care and education, the field should examine the extent to which practices implemented in our ECE programs are effective for all children served, including those who are dual language learners, and how the measures currently used to assess the quality of classroom practices work in classrooms serving DLLs The review conducted by the CECER-DLL (Peisner-Feinberg et al., 2014, in this issue) found very few studies examining the quality of practices in classrooms serving DLLs that analyzed data specifically focusing on this population Based on data from those studies, the authors concluded that measures of general quality seem to function similarly for monolingual and DLL populations, while measures developed specifically with a focus on DLLs seem to capture different dimensions of quality than the general measures In spite of the small number of studies included in this review, these findings provide an indication that when measuring quality in classrooms that include DLLs, the use of both general classroom quality and DLL-specific measures could provide useful information about the classroom environment and practices that can better support DLLs Furthermore, these findings could be related to previous research indicating that the characteristics of high-quality classrooms that benefit monolingual children also benefit DLLs, however, those practices may not be sufficient to support a comparable level of success among DLL children (August & Shanahan, 2006; Goldenberg, 2013) From a quality assessment perspective, measures of general classroom quality provide information about those high-quality classroom characteristics that benefit both monolingual and DLL children, and DLL specific quality measures can inform about those practices tailored to specifically address the needs of DLLs Methodological issues in DLL research The critical reviews of the research conducted by the CECERDLL revealed a number of methodological issues when studying DLLs’ development and early care and education that pose challenges for interpreting and synthesizing the current research The major challenges found across all five reviews include: (1) inconsistency in the definition of DLLs and sources of information used to determine DLL status; (2) limited information about DLLs and their families; (3) few longitudinal studies and small sample sizes; and (4) inconsistency in language(s) used in child outcome assessments 696 D.C Castro / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2014) 693–698 Defining who is a DLL and determining DLL status The inconsistency in the definition of DLL makes it difficult to draw conclusions that could be generalized to all DLLs, who can vary widely on various aspects of development For instance, many studies used children’s first or family language, or their ethnicity (e.g., Spanish-speaking children; Hispanic/Latino), and sometimes children’s or their families’ immigration status, as the only characteristic that define study participants as DLLs, without providing any information about how those descriptive characteristics were determined The vast majority of studies did not provide information about the age and amount of the child’s exposure to each of the two languages, and therefore, it was not possible to determine whether participants in the studies were sequential or simultaneous bilinguals, for example Similarly, information about degree of bilingualism (i.e., level of proficiency in each language) was not consistently provided nor used to determine children’s status as DLLs Regarding sources of information, most studies relied on parent or teacher reports to identify a child as DLL Few studies used standardized screening measures to determine children’s DLL status based on their level of proficiency in English Even fewer studies assessed children’s language proficiency in both of their languages and used that information to determine their DLL status Information about DLLs and their families Understanding contextual factors in the experiences of DLLs can be helpful in the interpretation of findings related to these children’s development and learning, considering that their experiences at home and in their communities can be different than those of their monolingual counterparts In the majority of studies reviewed, very limited information was provided about demographic characteristics and socioeconomic status of DLLs and their families For instance, some studies reported maternal education, but information on other characteristics such as family composition and generational status was rarely reported and used when analyzing data on these children’s development There is a consensus among researchers involved in the CECERDLL reviews about the pressing need to develop a standard protocol to determine the status of children as DLLs, documenting children’s exposure to and use of each language at home and in the ECE setting and their level of proficiency across languages In addition, this protocol should document the diversity among DLLs and their families in terms of demographic characteristics and socioeconomic status This would ensure consistency across samples, facilitating comparisons across studies To address this need the CECER-DLL has developed family and teacher/provider questionnaires, and a validation study is currently underway (a description is provided below) Study design and sample sizes It is concerning that the body of knowledge on DLLs’ development and early care and education is built on evidence from studies that use small sample sizes with the majority of them using singlecase and cross-sectional study designs Very limited longitudinal data are available on this population, and when DLLs have been included in longitudinal studies, the sample sizes are still small as compared with the samples from monolingual children Moreover, the diversity within the DLL population has not been taken into account when designing national studies and making decisions about sample sizes For example, in the secondary analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort conducted by the CECER-DLL (Winsler et al., 2014, in this issue), a dichotomous variable had to be used to identify children as DLLs (i.e., use a language other than English at home or not) because the database did not provide additional information describing more specifically the linguistic characteristics and experiences of these children These issues are critical because of their impact on our ability to draw strong conclusions about what it is known regarding the development and early care and education experiences of DLLs Language of assessment There were also challenges related to the inconsistency of approaches to assessment and the instruments used to assess DLLs across the many studies reviewed and the secondary analysis of the ECLS-B In most studies, DLLs were assessed only in English, some studies included an additional assessment in DLLs’ non-English language, others assessed children in their first language only if it was determined that was the child’s dominant language Few of the studies reviewed had assessed DLLs in their two languages across all domains examined This makes it difficult to draw conclusions and summarize findings across studies Furthermore, assessing bilingual children only in one of their two languages provides a partial view of their abilities Even when the study focuses on investigating children’s abilities in English (which is usually the primary language used in the ECE setting), data gathered on DLLs’ first or non-English language can provide valuable information about these children’s breath of knowledge and skills A limitation faced by researchers when studying DLLs’ development and their ECE experiences is the lack of availability of assessment instruments standardized on DLL populations Most studies in the CECER-DLL reviews assessed child outcomes with instruments standardized on monolingual English-speaking children When versions in other languages were used, they were for the most part mere translations with no proper cultural and linguistic adaptations In other cases, when children were assessed in their non-English language (generally Spanish), the instruments used had been developed for monolingual speakers of that language There is an urgency to develop valid and reliable measures to assess DLLs’ development and their experiences in ECE settings Other methodological challenges include the lack of information about the proportion of DLLs and non-DLLs in the ECE settings at the classroom and program levels, and lack of information about teachers’ proficiency in languages other than English Without this information it will be difficult to drawn conclusions with regard to the implementation of practices or interventions, and the use of classroom/program quality measures Also, generalizations across ECE settings will be limited Gaps and future research directions Although, research on the development and early care and education of DLLs has increased in the last decade, it is still considered emergent when compared with the existing research with monolingual children Each article in this section discusses in detail gaps and future directions for research in the corresponding topic These concluding remarks present an overview of gaps and recommendations for future research that emerge as the most relevant when considering the set of findings overall and what they mean for the field of early childhood as a whole One of the major gaps encountered is the very small number of studies focusing on infants and toddlers who are DLLs Most of the studies across developmental domains and in particular those related to early care and education practices have been conducted with preschool-aged (or older) DLLs This is a serious gap given the rapid growth of this DLL group and the recent federal policies oriented to expand and improve infants and toddlers’ non-parental care programs (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ ecd/early-head-start-child-care-partnerships) More research is also needed on DLLs in family child care settings, since most of the D.C Castro / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2014) 693–698 research with DLLs has been conducted in center-based programs The preference of families of DLLs to use parental or relative care and family child care options for their very young children (before age 4) has been documented (Espinosa et al., 2013), however, little is known about the characteristics of the environments and experiences these DLLs are exposed to in family child care settings Even though research on several aspects of DLLs’ cognitive, language, and literacy development is still limited as compared with research on monolingual children’s development, even fewer studies have been conducted on the socio-emotional development of DLLs The body of research on DLLs’ socio-emotional development is relatively small as compared with DLL research on other developmental domains indicating that much less attention has been devoted in the field of early childhood to the socio-emotional development of DLLs Studies focusing on the role of DLLs’ experiences (e.g., immigration status of the family, acculturation) and children’s socio-emotional development are very limited For example, studies on attachment with this population or studies examining children’s identity development and its association with DLLs’ language development were not found Acknowledging that research is still limited in many areas for Spanish-speaking DLLs, there is a need to increase the amount of research with DLLs who speak languages other than Spanish and English The majority of research with DLLs to date has been conducted with Spanish-speaking populations and very little is known about the cultural and language experiences of other DLL groups during their early years There is especially a paucity of research on development and early care and education of children from American Indian communities and on these communities’ efforts to maintain or revitalize their indigenous languages As discussed above, the limited availability of valid and reliable measures to assess DLLs’ development and their experiences in ECE settings is one of the biggest challenges faced by the field Developing and validating assessment instruments that are culturally responsive and linguistically appropriate is a pressing need Assessment measures are needed to document DLL’s context of development, developmental outcomes, and classroom/program experiences Some of the studies reviewed and the secondary analysis of the ECLS-B found complex patterns of interactions among demographic and contextual factors and DLLs’ diverse linguistic characteristics This suggests a need for research with this population to give more attention to these factors avoiding broad definitions and conclusions that not represent the diversity of characteristics and experiences among DLLs Longitudinal research has been critical to improve the quality of early childhood care and education for monolingual children (Campbell et al., 2002; Schweinhart et al., 2005) and could play an important role in identifying DLLs’ developmental processes and elements of quality that are associated with improved developmental and learning outcomes among DLLs Taken together, findings from these systematic reviews of the literature indicate that the research field is lacking a comprehensive theoretical framework describing the development of young dual language learners Although some pieces for building this framework currently exist in the literature (Genesee, 2010), a more cohesive and comprehensive conceptual framework is needed to guide future research on DLLs We have proposed a conceptual framework that will hopefully help to identify research gaps, and guide researchers in selecting relevant research questions that will advance the state of knowledge on the development of young DLLs (Castro et al., 2013) Although, conceptual frameworks have been proposed before for the study of development of children from minority backgrounds and those living in poverty (Garcia Coll et al., 1996; McLoyd, 1990; Ogbu, 1981), they not incorporate and emphasize factors for understanding the development specifically 697 of children growing up as dual language learners, with consideration to the diversity within this population, and the constellation of factors that are particular to their experiences In addition to the new conceptual framework for the study of DLLs’ development, the CECER-DLL has developed family and teacher/provider questionnaires to gather relevant information about DLLs’ linguistic characteristics as well as their home and ECE experiences (Hammer, Cycyk, 2014; Hammer, Scarpino, et al., 2014) and a study is currently underway The goals of this study are (1) to demonstrate the use of the conceptual framework for informing the design of research with DLLs, and (2) to validate the newly developed CECER-DLL Family and Teacher/Provider Questionnaires for the use of researchers in the field This study hopes to extend our work on the conceptual framework for the study of DLLs’ development proposed by the CECER-DLL by documenting the degree to which differing levels of exposure and use in Spanish (L1) and English (L2) vary relative to the families’ characteristics and dimensions specified in the DLL conceptual framework These rich descriptive analyses should contribute by guiding future research and ensure that sufficient attention is paid to the many factors that tend to co-occur with DLL status Also, the current study will demonstrate how the CECER-DLL Family and Teacher Questionnaires can be used to describe the diversity of family characteristics and DLLs’ language experiences at home and the early education setting The ultimate goals are to provide researchers in the ECE field with a new conceptual framework for the study of DLLs’ development and the tools and methods that will help them better describe the experiences and characteristics of young DLLs We hope that the work of the CECER-DLL, establishing the state of knowledge on the development of DLLs and their early care and education experiences, offering the ECE field a new conceptual framework for the study of DLLs’ development, and developing and validating the family and teacher/provider questionnaires to document DLLs’ experiences, has fulfilled the Center’s mission of advancing the capacity of the field to conduct scientifically valid and rigorous research that can contribute to improved early care and education for young dual language learners It is our expectation that the synergy that was enabled by the CECER-DLL leads to new opportunities for research collaborations Acknowledgements The author wishes first and foremost to thank all the researchers who were involved in the work of the Center for their invaluable contributions, their commitment and dedication Special recognition is given to Drs Margaret Burchinal, Linda M Espinosa, Eugene E Garcia and Carol S Hammer for their wisdom and insightful leadership Without the funding support none of our work would had been possible Thanks to the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) at the Administration for Children and Families, U.S Department of Health and Human Services for providing not only the funding but valuable guidance and support through the participation of Drs Wendy DeCourcey, Ivelisse Martinez-Beck, Ann Rivera, Mary Bruce Webb and Sharon Yandian, members of the Center’s Steering Committee The author would like to extend a special thank you to Dr DeCourcey, program officer, and Dr Rivera, program specialist, for their encouragement and unwavering support throughout the years of work of the Center Disclaimer The project described was supported by the Center for Early Care and Education Research: Dual Language Learner grant, grant 698 D.C Castro / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2014) 693–698 number 90YR0041, from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S Department of Health and Human Services Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and not necessarily represent the official views of the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, the Administration for Children and Families, or the U.S Department of Health and Human Services References August, D., & Shanahan, T (Eds.) 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(2008) Latinos: Remaking America Berkeley, CA: University of California Press Winsler, A., Burchinal, M R., Tien, H., Peisner-Feinberg, E., Espinosa, L., Castro, D C., et al (2014) Early developmental skills of diverse dual language learners: The roles of home language use, cultural heritage, maternal immigration, and sociodemographics in the ECLS-B Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 750–764 ... on the development of DLLs and their early care and education experiences, offering the ECE field a new conceptual framework for the study of DLLs’ development, and developing and validating the. .. population, the particular features of DLLs’ development and the type and quality of their early care and education experiences can be valuable to understand what these children need to develop to their... little is known about the cultural and language experiences of other DLL groups during their early years There is especially a paucity of research on development and early care and education of children