Kidd and Garcia report that language acquisition studies are skewed toward monolingual and English-speaking populations. This commentary considers Kidd and Garcia’s arguments in light of our research on mother-preschooler discourse and non-verbal communication in Thai monolingual and Thai-English bilingual children. We discuss lessons learned from testing linguistically diverse children and underscore the importance of research on non-WEIRD (Western, Industrialized, Educated, Rich, and Democratic) populations. We advocate for the inclusion of children who speak understudied languages and those who speak multiple languages in developmental science.
KiddE.GarciaR. (2022). How diverse is child language acquisition research?First Language, 1–33. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237211066405
2.
RochanavibhataS. (2022). Language development in bilingual preschoolers: A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison [Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University].
3.
RochanavibhataS.ChuangY.-C.MarianV. (2022, April). Different languages, different contexts, different gestures: A cross-linguistic comparison of bilingual mothers’ and children’s nonverbal communication [Paper presentation]. International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech, Lafayette, LA.
4.
RochanavibhataS.MarianV. (2020). Maternal scaffolding styles and children’s developing narrative skills: A cross-cultural comparison of autobiographical conversations in the US and Thailand. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 26, Article 100413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2020.100413
5.
RochanavibhataS.MarianV. (2021). Cross-cultural differences in mother-preschooler book sharing practices in the United States and Thailand. Journal of Child Language, 48(4), 834–857. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000920000562
6.
RochanavibhataS.MarianV. (2022). Culture at play: A cross-cultural comparison of mother-child communication during toy play. Language Learning and Development, 1–16. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2021.1954929
