{"id":1229,"date":"2025-06-17T14:26:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/?p=1229"},"modified":"2025-06-24T15:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T19:24:18","slug":"words-apart-an-interview-with-dr-crespo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/2025\/06\/17\/words-apart-an-interview-with-dr-crespo\/","title":{"rendered":"Words Apart – An Interview with Dr. Crespo"},"content":{"rendered":"

K<\/span>imberly Crespo\u2019s understanding of the world has always moved seamlessly between English and Spanish. Her Colombian mother and Puerto Rican father spoke mostly Spanish at home, and Crespo and her three siblings felt at ease alternating between languages in their racially and ethnically diverse Elizabeth, N.J., neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to switch between two languages opens up your world,\u201d she says. \u201cThe way that meaning and knowledge are encoded differs across languages. For example, in Spanish, you have multiple words that can index different gradients of love. To me, being bilingual provides a linguistic flexibility that\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crespo<\/a>, an assistant professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences, became interested in language development as a teenager, when her youngest brother was diagnosed with a speech delay. While her mother was working, Crespo would bring him to his speech pathology appointments at the local elementary school. \u201cI was fascinated by this idea of him learning language through play,\u201d she recalls.The first member of her family to attend college, Crespo enrolled at Kean University in Union, N.J. Through a college work-study program, she found a job as an assistant in the speech pathology department and soon connected with a mentor who encouraged her interest in research. Crespo went on to earn her PhD in communication sciences and disorders from the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison. Since joining Sargent in 2022, Crespo has channeled her passion for dual-language representation into her research.<\/p>\n

Language, Cognition, and Bilingualism<\/h5>\n

As director and principal investigator of the\u00a0<\/span>Bilingual Learning Lab<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(BLL), Crespo explores how the bilingual experience influences language and cognitive development. She wants to understand how bilingual parents speak to and teach their children at home and how dual-language input shapes word-learning and semantic development (how word meanings are represented, organized, and connected). \u201cMost language acquisition studies don\u2019t include bilingual kids or kids with language disorders,\u201d she says, \u201cso we actually don\u2019t know how robust these theories are in other contexts and with other learners.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a problem compounded by the reality that being bilingual tends to intersect with being lower income. \u201cWe know that lower socioeconomic status is tied to poorer language outcomes,\u201d Crespo says. \u201cThese studies ultimately inform policy and curriculum. We need to be able to generalize to multiple populations, and that includes kids who are brought up bilingually.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the BLL, Crespo says, the goal is to recruit more diverse populations to participate in studies, rather than focusing narrowly on one subgroup or another. \u201cOur approach is to look at the full continuum of language ability, including kids who traditionally fall under a developmental language disorder category,\u201d she says, \u201cThat\u2019s just a more equitable\u2014not to mention analytically robust\u2014way of testing how language ability influences children\u2019s learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Crespo and collaborators at UW\u2013Madison published a study that tested the effect of code-switching, or alternating between two languages, on word-learning in Spanish-English bilingual children. Bilingual parents\u2014especially those who have children with neurodevelopmental disabilities\u2014are routinely advised to speak to their kids in only one language. The assumption is that dual-language input hampers language acquisition.<\/p>\n

Crespo\u2019s study found no empirical evidence to support that practice. In fact, her findings suggest that code-switched input does not impede word-learning and that it may enhance vocabulary growth over time. \u201cA crucial practical finding is that children with lower levels of language ability learn just as well from code-switched input as from single-language input,\u201d Crespo says. \u201cThis should reassure parents, educators, and clinicians who are concerned that code-switched input may be nonoptimal for children with language difficulties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our approach is to look at the full continuum of language ability, including kids who traditionally fall under a developmental language disorder category. That\u2019s just a more equitable\u2014not to mention analytically robust\u2014way of doing it.<\/p>\n

\u2014Kimberly Crespo<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Current and Future Research<\/h5>\n

Crespo\u2019s current research examines how bilingualism influences word-learning in late-talking toddlers. \u201cWe know that bilinguals represent meanings of words across two languages,\u201d she says. \u201cA child might know the word \u2018ball\u2019 in English but understand the different properties of a ball in Spanish. My question is, how do kids make connections and leverage this information that is encoded in two different languages to learn something new?\u201d<\/p>\n

Crespo has a hunch that when bilingual caregivers follow recommendations to limit dual-language exposure to kids with language delays, children may lose the \u201csemantic richness\u201d they would have received from the language they speak at home\u2014to the detriment of their learning outcomes. Preliminary data show that \u201cmore bilingual experiences make kids better word learners,\u201d she says. \u201cA longer-term question is, what are the cascading effects of that? Could this help us better understand the variability in language outcomes and language abilities in kids?\u201d<\/p>\n

Crespo hopes her lab can lead in advancing research that prioritizes linguistic diversity. \u201cBilingual families and children bring valuable insights into the adaptability and plasticity of the human brain,\u201d she says. \u201cEmbracing the experiences of dual-language learners not only enhances our understanding of language development but also fosters cultural competence and equity in speech-language services. It\u2019s the only way we can create more inclusive and effective therapeutic models for all learners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story by Ting Yu<\/em><\/h5>\n
With Inside Sargent<\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kimberly Crespo\u2019s understanding of the world has always moved seamlessly between English and Spanish. Her Colombian mother and Puerto Rican father spoke mostly Spanish at home, and Crespo and her three siblings felt at ease alternating between languages in their racially and ethnically diverse Elizabeth, N.J., neighborhood. \u201cBeing able to switch between two languages opens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25022"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1238,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions\/1238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/crespolab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}