The role of socioemotional wellbeing difficulties and adversity in the L2 acquisition of first-generation refugee children

Abstract First-generation refugee children often experience pre- and post-migration adversity display high levels of mental health/wellbeing difficulties, but to date, research has not examined the impact such factors on children's L2 acquisition. Accordingly, this study influence externalizing internalizing problem behaviours (wellbeing), time in camps low socioeconomic status (SES) (adversity) English-L2 abilities 117 Syrian (7–14 years) their third year residency Canada. Wellbeing difficulties accounted for variance vocabulary, morphosyntax, listening comprehension narrative production tasks, beyond by age acquisition length exposure. Specifically, behaviours, camp, maternal education employment predicted abilities. It is concluded that could have influences are different from those bilinguals with other backgrounds.