Exploring the Use of Parent and Teacher Questionnaires to Screen for Language Disorders in Bilingual Children

2020 ◽  
pp. 027112142094230
Author(s):  
Amy S. Pratt ◽  
Ashley M. Adams ◽  
Elizabeth D. Peña ◽  
Lisa M. Bedore
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
Teacher Reports ◽  
Report Measure

We explore the classification accuracy of a parent and teacher report measure, the Inventory to Assess Language Knowledge (ITALK), to screen for developmental language disorder (DLD) in bilingual children. Participants included 120 Spanish English bilingual children with typical development (TD) and 19 bilingual children with DLD, ranging in age from 5 to 8 years old. Parents’ and teachers’ reports correlated moderately with each other and significantly predicted children’s performance on language-specific measures of morphosyntax and semantics. Results yielded sensitivity of .90 and specificity of .63 when using a composite of parent and teacher reports in Spanish and English. Examination of structure loadings in follow-up analyses by grade showed that teachers’ report of English and parents’ report of Spanish were the strongest predictors of impairment in kindergarten. In second grade, the strongest predictors were parent and teacher reports in English. Implications for referral and identification are discussed.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Influences of Bilingualism and Developmental Language Disorder on Children's Nonverbal Processing Speed

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Kerry Danahy Ebert
Keyword(s):  
Processing Speed ◽  
Visual Detection ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Cognitive Effects ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
English Only ◽  
Hyperactivity Disorder

Purpose This study examined the influences of bilingualism and developmental language disorder (DLD) on nonverbal processing speed. DLD is associated with slower processing speed, but the extent to which slowing extends to bilingual populations is not established. The possible presence of bilingual cognitive effects could also lead to faster processing speed among bilingual children. Method Participants included 108 children of ages 6–8 years, including 56 Spanish–English bilinguals (29 with DLD and 27 with typical development) and 52 English-only monolinguals (25 with DLD and 27 with typical development). Language testing (in both languages for bilingual children) was combined with parent and school report to classify children as having DLD or typical language development. Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder were excluded from the sample. Reaction time from a choice visual detection task was used to index nonverbal processing speed. Results Children with DLD demonstrated slower processing speed than their typically developing peers, whereas bilingual children demonstrated faster processing speed than monolinguals. The effects of DLD and bilingualism did not interact. Conclusions This study replicates prior findings of slowed processing speed among children with DLD in both monolingual and bilingual children. Evidence of faster processing speed among bilingual children contributes to the complex literature surrounding the circumstances of bilingual cognitive effects. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.15138747

scholarly journals Reading and math achievement in children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder, or typical development: Achievement gaps persist from second through fourth grades

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawna Duff ◽  
Alison Eisel Hendricks ◽  
Lisa Fitton ◽  
Suzanne Adlof
Keyword(s):  
Support Services ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Academic Functioning ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Growth Curve Models ◽  
School Based ◽  
Reading And Math ◽  
Research Criteria

We examined how children (n=448) who met research criteria for separate vs. co-occurring DLD and dyslexia performed on school-based measures of academic functioning in reading and math between second and fourth grades. Growth curve models were used to examine the overall form of growth and differences between groups. Children with DLD and/or dyslexia in second grade showed early and persistent deficits on school-administered measures of reading and math. In second grade, children with typical development (TD) scored significantly higher than all other groups, children with DLD+dyslexia scored significantly lower than all other groups, and children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only did not differ from each other. Only small differences in growth rates were observed, and gaps in second grade did not close. Few children (20-27%) meeting research criteria for dyslexia and/or DLD had received specialized support services. Children with DLD only received services at less than half the rate of the dyslexia groups, despite similar levels of academic performance. Evidence of significant and persistent functional impacts on academic achievement support the validity of standard research criteria for dyslexia and DLD. Low rates of reported support services in these children —especially those with DLD-only— highlight the need to raise awareness of these disorders.

scholarly journals Semantic Category Convergence in Spanish–English Bilingual Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 2361-2371
Author(s):  
Prarthana Shivabasappa ◽  
Elizabeth D. Peña ◽  
Lisa M. Bedore
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Semantic Fluency ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Lexical Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Age Range

Purpose The study examines the extent of convergence of semantic category members in Spanish–English bilingual children with reference to adults using a semantic fluency task. Method Thirty-seven children with developmental language disorder (DLD), matched pairwise with 37 typically developing (TD) children in the age range of 7;0–9;11 (years;months), produced items in 7 semantic categories (3 taxonomic and 4 slot-filler) in both Spanish and English. The 10 most frequently produced items for each category by 20 Spanish–English bilingual adults were identified as the most prototypical responses. The top 10 items generated by TD children and children with DLD, in their order of production, were analyzed for the amount of convergence with adults' responses. Results The top 5 items produced by children with DLD showed similar convergence scores as those produced by their TD peers. However, their responses in the 6th to 10th positions showed lower convergence scores than their TD peers. Children's convergence scores were higher for the slot-filler condition compared to taxonomic in both English and Spanish. The convergence scores also significantly differed across the semantic categories. Conclusion The children with DLD show greater convergence on the typical items generated earlier in their word lists than the items generated later. This pattern of convergence and divergence highlights their strengths and weaknesses in the representation of lexical–semantic knowledge for typical versus less typical items. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.8323613

Predictors of language proficiency in school-age Spanish–English bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Kerry Danahy Ebert ◽  
Madeline Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Analytical Reasoning ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have impairments in their language-learning abilities that may influence interactions with environmental opportunities to learn two languages. This study explores relationships between proficiency in L1 and L2 and a set of environmental and personal variables within a group of school-age Spanish–English bilingual children with DLD and a group of typically-developing peers. Within each group, current usage in the home, length of L2 exposure, gender, maternal education, analytical reasoning, and number of L1 conversational partners were used to predict proficiency in each language. Results showed that home language environment, particularly home L2 usage, strongly predicted L1 proficiency but had less influence on the L2. Female gender predicted L1 skills in both groups, whereas analytical reasoning predicted both L1 and L2 but only for children with DLD. This study expands the limited literature on how children with DLD interact with their environment to learn two languages.

Compensation to Altered Auditory Feedback in Children With Developmental Language Disorder and Typical Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Caitlin Coughler ◽  
Emily Michaela Hamel ◽  
Janis Oram Cardy ◽  
Lisa M. D. Archibald ◽  
David W. Purcell
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Feedback ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Shift Condition ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Processing Component ◽  
Speech Motor

Purpose Developmental language disorder (DLD), an unexplained problem using and understanding spoken language, has been hypothesized to have an underlying auditory processing component. Auditory feedback plays a key role in speech motor control. The current study examined whether auditory feedback is used to regulate speech production in a similar way by children with DLD and their typically developing (TD) peers. Method Participants aged 6–11 years completed tasks measuring hearing, language, first formant (F1) discrimination thresholds, partial vowel space, and responses to altered auditory feedback with F1 perturbation. Results Children with DLD tended to compensate more than TD children for the positive F1 manipulation and compensated less than TD children in the negative shift condition. Conclusion Our findings suggest that children with DLD make atypical use of auditory feedback.

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