The DOI matches its Crossref record; 72 of the 73 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Linguistic Interdependence and the Educational Development of Bilingual Children
Abstract
The central thesis of this paper is that a cognitively and academically beneficial form of bilingualism can be achieved only on the basis of adequately developed first language (L1) skills. Two hypotheses are formulated and combined to arrive at this position. The "developmental interdependence" hypothesis proposes that the development of competence in a second language (L2) is partially a function of the type of competence already developed in L1 at the time when intensive exposure to L2 begins. The "threshold" hypothesis proposes that there may be threshold levels of linguistic competence which a bilingual child must attain both in order to avoid cognitive disadvantages and allow the potentially beneficial aspects of bilingualism to influence his cognitive and academic functioning. These hypotheses are integrated into a model of bilingual education in which educational outcomes are explained as a function of the interaction between background, child input and educational treatment factors. It is suggested that many evaluations of bilingual education programs have produced uninterpretable data because they have failed to incorporate the possibility of these interactions into their research designs.
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“The main idea of this hypothesis is that learning two languages will improve the learning process of both, regardless of the orthography type (Cummins, 1979).”
From Cognitive Retroactive Transfer (CRT) of Language Skills among Trilingual Arabic-Hebrew and English Learners (2014) · cites this paper as Cummins, 1979
In the citing paper
“The interdependence hypothesis, on the other hand, argues that cross-linguistic transfer exists and is supported by a common underlying learning mechanism used to learn both L1 and L2 skills (Cummins, 1979).”
From Do word-level skills show cross-linguistic transfer and predict bilingual reading? (2026) · cites this paper as Cummins, 1979
In the citing paper
“The results of path analyses show that morphological compounding can be transferred between Chinese and English, supporting the interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979 ) and echoing the previous findings (Ke & Xiao, 2015; Lin et al., 2018 ; Xie et al., 2022).”
From Do word-level skills show cross-linguistic transfer and predict bilingual reading? (2026) · cites this paper as Cummins, 1979
In the citing paper
“The results of path analyses show that morphological compounding can be transferred between Chinese and English, supporting the interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979 ) and echoing the previous findings (Ke & Xiao, 2015; Lin et al., 2018 ; Xie et al., 2022).”
From Do word-level skills show cross-linguistic transfer and predict bilingual reading? (2026) · cites this paper as Cummins, 1979
In the citing paper
“Our findings support the interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979) that there are common learning mechanisms supporting some linguistic and comprehension skills in bilingual languages.”
From Do word-level skills show cross-linguistic transfer and predict bilingual reading? (2026) · cites this paper as Cummins, 1979
In the citing paper
“The developmental linguistic interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979) assumes that concepts, skills and linguistic knowledge that have been developed in Lx can be in part transferred to Ly through a CUP.”
From Linguistic interdependence of receptive vocabulary skills in emergent bilingual preschool children: Exploring a factor-dependent approach (2019) · cites this paper as Cummins, 1979
In the citing paper
“I proposed that literacy-related concepts and skills in L1 and L2 are interdependent, or manifestations of a common underlying proficiency, such that academic knowledge and skills transfer across languages under appropriate conditions of development (e.g., educational support for both languages) (Cummins, 1978(Cummins, , 1979)).”
From English Language Learners in Canadian Schools: Emerging Directions for School-Based Policies (2012) · cites this paper as Cummins, 1979
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Metadata
- Authors
- Cummins, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Alberta (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Cummins, James
- Venue
- Review of Educational Research
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1979
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 222
- ISSN
- 0034-6543 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2108836181
- Cited by
- 3,318
- References
- 73
- Citations by year
- 2026: 123 · 2025: 147 · 2024: 135 · 2023: 135 · 2022: 173 · 2021: 171 · 2020: 196 · 2019: 203 · 2018: 173 · 2017: 148 · 2016: 129 · 2015: 162 · 2014: 133 · 2013: 146 · 2012: 122
- FWCI
- 177.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Review of Educational Research (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Multilingual Education and Policy
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Keywords
- bilingual children, bilingual education, first language development, second language acquisition, threshold hypothesis, bilingual advantage, academic performance
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