Diagnostic accuracy of current assessment measures for developmental language disorders in bilingual children

Abstract

Background: Speech-language pathologists are facing challenges in assessing bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The study aimed to systematically review the literature for the past five years and evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of current assessment measures in the identification of DLD in bilingual children. Method: Through a keyword search from four electronic databases and a manual search of reference lists, eligible studies were identified and evaluated with respect to quality of evidence, study characteristics, and reported diagnostic accuracy. Results: The assessment measures used in the studies varied widely in format, emphasis, and origin. Most studies lacked clear descriptions of controls for potential biases, making it difficult to rate specific quality indicators and decreasing the overall quality of evidence. Diagnostic accuracy of assessment measures across studies ranged from poor to good. Mixed measures showed a higher percentage of good diagnostic accuracy compared to linguistic and nonlinguistic ones. Discussion/conclusions: Evidence supports the previous findings regarding the difficulties in developing appropriate assessment tools and advocacy for using converging evidence in assessment. Limitations in methodology discussed in the past literature still exist, which may result in inflated diagnostic accuracy and decreased validity.