Bilingual Specific Language Impairment Research Articles

Μελέτη της παραγωγής κλιτικών αντωνυμιών σε μονόγλωσσα και δίγλωσσα παιδιά με Ειδική Γλωσσική Διαταραχή

In this study, we tested the predictions of two opposing perspectives on the nature of the deficit in Specific Language Impairment (SLI): the language delay approach, and the view that the language development of SLI children is qualitatively different from typically developing children populations. Data consisted of the elicited production of pronominal object clitics from monolingual and bilingual SLI children with various language pairs (Greek always being the children’s second language); younger, typically developing, bilingual language peers, and monolingual Greek-speaking comparison groups. We analyzed the children’s accurate responses and error-types in clitic production. Both SLI groups had more difficulty with clitics in comparison to typically-developing, chronological age-matched peers, while SLI children performed similarly with their younger, unaffected monolingual and bilingual peers. We argue that these findings provide support to the language delay approach and present challenges to the role of bilingualism in SLI.

Διερευνώντας τη σχέση μεταξύ της Ειδικής Γλωσσικής Διαταραχής και της Δυσλεξίας: θεωρητικές και κλινικές προεκτάσεις

In this study, we tested the predictions of two opposing perspectives on the nature of the deficit in Specific Language Impairment (SLI): the language delay approach, and the view that the language development of SLI children is qualitatively different from typically developing children populations. Data consisted of the elicited production of pronominal object clitics from monolingual and bilingual SLI children with various language pairs (Greek always being the children’s second language); younger, typically developing, bilingual language peers, and monolingual Greek-speaking comparison groups. We analyzed the children’s accurate responses and error-types in clitic production. Both SLI groups had more difficulty with clitics in comparison to typically-developing, chronological age-matched peers, while SLI children performed similarly with their younger, unaffected monolingual and bilingual peers. We argue that these findings provide support to the language delay approach and present challenges to the role of bilingualism in SLI.

Referential Cohesion in the Narratives of Bilingual and Monolingual Children With Typically Developing Language and With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose The study explores referential cohesion in the narratives of bilingual preschool children with typical language development (TLD) and with specific language impairment (SLI). Referential cohesion requires integration of multiple discourse factors and is expected to pose a challenge for children with bilingual SLI due to weak proficiency in both languages. Method Narratives were elicited from 45 bilinguals speaking Russian as the home language (L1) and Hebrew as the societal language (L2; 15 with SLI), 20 Hebrew-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI), and 20 Russian-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI) using a story retelling procedure. Bilinguals were tested in both languages. Analyses examined the effect of impairment (SLI vs. TLD) in bilinguals and monolinguals. Language effects were examined in cross-language comparisons of bilinguals (L1 vs. L2) and in differences between monolingual groups (Russian vs. Hebrew speakers) for the use of referential expressions. Results Bilingual children with SLI used a higher proportion of pronouns for character introduction and had fewer pronouns, which have been described as "adequate" ( Colozzo & Whitely, 2014 ) than bilingual children with TLD. No language effect emerged for bilinguals, who performed similarly in their L1 and L2, but a significant cross-linguistic difference emerged in the monolingual data: Russian-speaking children mainly used nouns to introduce and maintain characters, whereas Hebrew-speaking children mainly used pronouns for introduction and maintenance of characters. Conclusion The difficulty of children with SLI in creating a referential connection between a pronoun and a noun phrase is discussed in light of the interaction of local and global processes in narratives, which is shown to be weaker in children with SLI.

Methods for Identifying Specific Language Impairment in Bilingual Populations in Germany

This study investigates the performance of 22 monolingual and 54 bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI), in a nonword repetition (NWRT) and a sentence repetition task (SRT). Both tasks were constructed according to the principles for LITMUS tools (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) developed within COST Action IS0804, and incorporated phonological or syntactic structures that are linguistically complex and have been shown to be difficult for children with SLI across languages. For phonology these are in particular (non)words containing consonant clusters. In morphosyntax complexity has been attributed to factors such as embedding and/or syntactic movement. Tasks focusing on such structures are expected to identify SLI in bilinguals across language combinations. This is notoriously difficult because structures that are problematic for typically developing bilinguals (BiTDs) and monolingual children with SLI (MoSLI) often overlap. We show that the NWRT and the SRT are reliable tools for identification of SLI in bilingual contexts. However, interpretation of the performance of bilingual children depends on background information as provided by parental questionnaires. In order to evaluate the accuracy of our tasks we recruited children in ordinary kindergartens or schools and in Speech Language Therapy centers and verified their status with a battery of standardized language tests, assessing bilingual children in both their languages. We consider a bilingual child language impaired if she shows impairments in two language domains in both her languages. For assessment we used tests normed for monolinguals (with one exception) and adjusted the norms for bilingualism and for language dominance. This procedure established the following groups: 10 typical monolinguals (MoTD), 12 MoSLI, 46 BiTD and 8 bilingual children with SLI (BiSLI). Our results show that both tasks target relevant structures: monolingual children are classified with 100% accuracy. Crucially, both our tasks distinguish BiTDs from MoSLIs and BiTDs from BiSLIs. The NWRT shows high accuracy and only minimal influence of language dominance. The SRT can be scored as “identical repetition” or as “target structure”, the latter aiming for scoring the mastery of a syntactic structure, ignoring lexical and specific case or gender errors. Focusing on the latter measure, we

Can executive functioning contribute to the diagnosis of SLI in bilingual children?

Abstract Language tests often fail to diagnose specific language impairment (SLI) in bilinguals due to the confounding impact of SLI and bilingualism on language. The present study focuses on the contribution of executive functioning to the diagnosis of SLI in bilinguals. Performance of monolingual and bilingual children with and without SLI on a task tapping response inhibition was assessed. Results revealed a negative effect of SLI but no effect of bilingualism. The diagnostic accuracy of the task was also estimated. Sensitivity and specificity were low, suggesting that response inhibition could not be considered as a reliable clinical marker of SLI. Although the results at the group level showed that children with SLI seemed more at risk than their typically-developing peers for a deficit in response inhibition, our results on diagnostic accuracy challenge the hypothesis of a relationship between deficits in language and deficits in inhibition in children with SLI.

Foreword

Background: Recent evidence suggests that specific language impairment (SLI) might be secondary to general cognitive processing limitations in the domain of executive functioning. Previous research has focused almost exclusively on monolingual children with SLI and offers little evidence-based guidance on executive functioning in bilingual children with SLI. Studying bilinguals with SLI is important, especially in the light of increasing evidence that bilingualism can bring advantages in certain domains of executive functioning. Aims: To determine whether executive functioning represents an area of difficulty for bilingual language-minority children with SLI and, if so, which specific executive processes are affected. Methods & Procedures: This cross-cultural research was conducted with bilingual children from Luxembourg and monolingualchildrenfromPortugalwhoallhadPortugueseastheirfirstlanguage.Thedatafrom81eight-year-olds from the following three groups were analysed: (1) 15 Portuguese‐Luxembourgish bilinguals from Luxembourg with an SLI diagnosis; (2) 33 typically developing Portuguese‐Luxembourgish bilinguals from Luxembourg; and (3) 33 typically developing Portuguese-speaking monolinguals from Portugal. Groups were matched on first language, ethnicity, chronological age and socioeconomic status, and they did not differ in nonverbal intelligence. Children completed a battery of tests tapping: expressive and receptive vocabulary, syntacticcomprehension, verbal and visuospatial working memory, selective attention and interference suppression. Outcomes & Results: The bilingual SLI group performed equally well compared with their typically developing peers on measures of visuospatial working memory, but had lower scores than both control groups on tasks of verbal working memory. On measures of selective attention and interference suppression, typically developing children who were bilingual outperformed their monolingual counterparts. For selective attention, performance of the bilingual SLI group did not differ significantly from the controls. For interference suppression the bilingual SLI group performed significantly less well than typically developing bilinguals but not monolinguals. Conclusions&Implications:ThisresearchprovidesfurthersupporttothepositionthatSLIisnotalanguage-specific disorder. The study indicates that although bilingual children with SLI do not demonstrate the same advantages in selective attention and interference suppression as typically developing bilinguals, they do not lag behind typically developing monolinguals in these domains of executive functioning. This finding raises the possibility that bilingualism might represent a protective factor against some of the cognitive limitations that are associated with SLI in monolinguals.

Diagnosing language impairment in bilinguals: Professional experience and perception

Diagnosing specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual children is a complex task, with some controversy regarding criteria. Diagnosis of SLI in bilinguals is made more complex by the lack of standardized assessments and poor understanding of clinical markers in languages other than English. There is an added complexity when one of the languages being acquired is an endangered one, where the domains of use and input are restricted, and where input is affected by convergence with the majority language. This article explores the challenge facing speech and language therapists and psychologists in diagnosing SLI in bilingual children acquiring Irish and English. Six speech and language therapists and four psychologists took part in semi-structured interviews exploring the impact of the bilingual environment, the nature of bilingual language impairment, current practices and the needs of these children. Thematic analysis was carried out and here three of the main themes emerging in the areas of assessment, the bilingual environment and characteristics of language impairment in this population are discussed. For assessment, an overriding theme was the requirement of standardized testing to secure additional educational and therapy resources for these children. However, because there are no standardized tests available in Irish, both professions end up translating existing English-based language and psychological assessments, using the norms provided to achieve standard scores. Both professions expressed strong dissatisfaction with this practice but saw little choice, given the Department of Education’s approach to allocation of supports. Language impairment in Irish was characterized by lexical difficulties, particularly with verbs and prepositions, tense errors, and significant borrowing and code-switching with English. Other themes that emerged were the growing influence of English as the children became older, which affected both attitudes to the minority Irish language as well as the content and structure of the language itself. The implications for service provision for bilingual populations in general are outlined.

The use of subject–verb agreement and verb argument structure in monolingual and bilingual children with specific language impairment

This study investigates the use of subject–verb agreement and verb argument structure in the spoken Dutch of monolingual Dutch children with specific language impairment (SLI) and bilingual Frisian–Dutch children with SLI. Both SLI groups appeared to be less efficient in their use of subject–verb agreement and verb argument structure than the control group (consisting of monolingual typically developing Dutch children matched on mean length of utterance in morphemes) in that they showed significantly more agreement errors as well as a relation between verb agreement structure complexity and omission, a relation that the typically developing children failed to show. Furthermore, no significant differences were found between the monolingual and the bilingual SLI group. These findings indicate that subject–verb agreement and verb argument structure are both affected in SLI, but not more severely in bilinguals than in monolinguals.

The potential of studying specific language impairment in bilinguals for linguistic research on specific language impairment in monolinguals

In her Keynote Article, Paradis discusses the role of the interface between bilingual development and specific language impairment (SLI) on two different levels. On the level of theoretical explanations of SLI, Paradis asks how domain general versus domain-specific perspectives on SLI can account for bilingual SLI, as well as what bilingual SLI may contribute to the discussion of these theories. Paradis argues in favor of domain-specific deficits (in addition to well-documented processing deficits in SLI), and especially for the maturational model (Rice, 2004). She argues against a mere processing deficit of input information and against deficits in working memory and processing speed as sole sources of SLI. On the practical level, Paradis focuses on the question of whether and how language tests that have been standardized for monolingual children are valid for the assessment of SLI in bilingual children. Both discussions, on theory and on practice, are based on empirical data from Canadian studies on bilingual children with and without SLI carried out by Johanne Paradis, Martha Crago, and Fred Genesee (e.g., Crago & Paradis, 2003; Paradis, 2007; Paradis, Crago, & Genesee, & Rice, 2003).

Summing up problems in bilingual specific language impairment: Why multiple influences may not be additive

The Keynote Article is a very welcomed, timely, and incisive review article that examines theoretical and clinical implications of research on bilingual development and specific language impairment (SLI). Paradis provides a considered examination of the available evidence and takes into account a number of potential influencing factors. In particular, I want to commend her discussion of potential compensatory mechanisms that may play a role in bilingual development in SLI. This is often a neglected area in discussions concerning SLI. I also want to highlight that I agree wholeheartedly with her conclusion that the evidence to date “leans toward a positive attitude toward dual language learning for children with SLI who are in a supportive context for bilingualism.” This message is by no means universally accepted, nor is it put into action in therapeutic contexts across the United Kingdom and Europe. There is still much debate as to what type of advice should be given to parents and what the target language or languages of therapy should be (Harulow, 2008). This review article has therefore the potential not only to make a significant contribution to theory but also to practice.