scholarly journals Identifying Bilingual Children at Risk for Language Impairment: The Implication of Children’s Response Speed in Narrative Contexts

Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Pui Fong Kan ◽  
Anna Miller ◽  
Sierra Still
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Response Speed ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Story Retell ◽  
English Speaking

The purpose of the study was to examine whether monolingual adults can identify the bilingual children with LI on the basis of children’s response speed to the examiner. Participants were 37 monolingual English-speaking young adults. Stimuli were 48 audio clips from six sequential bilingual children (48 months) who were predominately exposed to Cantonese (L1) at home from birth and started to learn English (L2) in preschool settings. The audio clips for each child were selected from an interactive story-retell task in both Cantonese and English. Three of the children were typically developing, and three were identified as having a language impairment. The monolingual adult participants were asked to judge children’s response times for each clip. Interrater reliability was high (Kalpha = 0.82 for L1; Kalpha = 0.75 for L2). Logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curves were used to examine the diagnostic accuracy of the task. Results showed that monolingual participants were able to identify bilingual children with LI based on children’s response speed. Sensitivity and specificity were higher in Cantonese conditions compared to English conditions. The results added to the literature that children’s response speed can potentially be used, along with other measures, to identify bilingual children who are at risk for language impairment.

English Past Tense Use in Bilingual Children With Language Impairment

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy F. Jacobson ◽  
Richard G. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Language Differences ◽  
Error Patterns ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Irregular Verbs ◽  
Verb Categories

Grammatical measures that distinguish language differences from language disorders in bilingual children are scarce. This study examined English past tense morphology in sequential bilingual Spanish/English-speaking children, age 7;0–9;0 (years;months). Twelve bilingual children with language impairment (LI) or history of LI and 15 typically developing (TD) bilingual children participated. Thirty-six instances of the past tense including regular, irregular, and novel verbs were examined using an elicited production task. By examining English past tense morphology in sequential bilinguals, we uncovered similarities and differences in the error patterns of TD children and children with LI. The groups differed in the overall accuracy of past tense use according to verb type, as well as the characteristic error patterns. Children with LI performed lower than their TD peers on all verb categories, with an interaction between verb type and group. TD children were better at producing regular verbs and exhibited more productive errors (e.g., overregularization). Conversely, children with LI performed relatively better on irregular verbs and poorest on novel verbs, and they exhibited more nonproductive errors (e.g., bare stem verbs). The results have important clinical implications for the assessment of morphological productivity in Spanish-speaking children who are learning English sequentially.

Phonological Measures for Bilingual Spanish-English–Speaking Preschoolers: The Language Combination Effect

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Leah Fabiano-Smith ◽  
Chelsea Privette ◽  
Lingling An
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Accuracy ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Spanish Phonology ◽  
The Individual

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the diagnostic accuracy of traditional measures of phonological ability developed for monolingual English-speaking children with their bilingual peers in both English and Spanish. We predicted that a composite measure, derived from a combination of English and Spanish phonological measures, would result in higher diagnostic accuracy than examining the individual phonological measures of bilingual children separately by language. Method Sixty-six children, ages 3;3–6;3 (years;months), participated in this study: 29 typically developing bilingual Spanish-English–speaking children ( x = 5;3), five bilingual Spanish-English–speaking children with speech sound disorders ( x = 4;6), 26 typically developing monolingual English-speaking children ( x = 4;8), and six monolingual English-speaking children with speech sound disorders ( x = 4;9). Children were recorded producing single words using the Assessments of English and Spanish Phonology, and productions were phonetically transcribed and analyzed using the Logical International Phonetics Program. Overall consonants correct–revised; accuracy of early-, middle-, and late-developing sounds; and percent occurrence of phonological error patterns in both English and Spanish were calculated. Receiver operating characteristic curves and support vector machine models were applied to observe diagnostic accuracy, separately and combined, for each speaker group and each language. Results Findings indicated the combination of measures improved diagnostic accuracy within both the English and Spanish of bilingual children and significantly increased accuracy when measures from both languages of bilingual children were combined. Combining measures for the productions of monolingual English-speaking children did not increase diagnostic accuracy. Conclusion To prevent misdiagnosis of speech sound disorders in bilingual preschoolers, the composite phonological abilities of bilingual children need to be assessed across both gross and discrete measures of phonological ability. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16632604

Performance on nonlinguistic visual tasks by children with language impairment

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER WINDSOR ◽  
KATHRYN KOHNERT ◽  
AMANDA L. LOXTERCAMP ◽  
PUI-FONG KAN
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Motor Speed ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Visual Tasks ◽  
English Speaking

ABSTRACTThe performance of 8- to 13-year-old monolingual English-speaking children with language impairment (LI) on seven nonlinguistic tasks was compared with two groups of typically developing children, monolingual English-speaking children, and proficient Spanish–English sequential bilingual children. Group differences were apparent, with a key finding that the LI group was observably slower than both typical groups in mental rotation and arithmetic, and also slower than the typical monolingual group in odd man out, pattern matching, and form completion. Overall, the response time (RT) increased equivalently across groups as task difficulty increased. Chronological age and perceptual–motor speed contributed to task performance, especially for the shorter tasks. RT trajectories across the 6-year age span showed that task RT decreased with age, but with greater variability for longer tasks that may also be more vulnerable to the effect of experience.

Children's Nonword Repetition Tasks and English Language Learners

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-79
Author(s):  
Sara C. Steele ◽  
Deborah A. Hwa-Froelich
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
English Language ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Internationally Adopted Children ◽  
English Speaking

Nonword repetition performance has been shown to differentiate monolingual English-speaking children with language impairment (LI) from typically developing children. These tasks have been administered to monolingual speakers of different languages and to simultaneous and sequential bilingual English Language Learners (ELLs) with mixed results. This article includes a review of the nonword repetition performance of monolingual and bilingual speakers and of internationally adopted children. Clinical implications for administration and interpretation of nonword repetition task outcomes are included.

scholarly journals Diagnostic Accuracy of Traditional Measures of Phonological Ability for Bilingual Preschoolers and Kindergarteners

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Fabiano-Smith ◽  
Katherine Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Accuracy ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves ◽  
Phonological Disorders ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Good Diagnostic Accuracy

Purpose Bilingual children whose phonological skills are evaluated using measures designed for monolingual English speakers are at risk for misdiagnosis of speech sound disorders (De Lamo White & Jin, 2011). Method Forty-four children participated in this study: 15 typically developing monolingual English speakers, 7 monolingual English speakers with phonological disorders, 14 typically developing bilingual Spanish–English speakers, and 8 bilingual children with phonological disorders. Children's single-word speech productions were examined on Percentage Consonants Correct–Revised (Shriberg, Austin, Lewis, McSweeny, & Wilson, 1997a) and accuracy of early-, middle-, and late-developing sounds (Shriberg, 1993) in English. Consonant accuracy in English was compared between monolinguals and bilinguals with and without speech sound disorders. Logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curves were used to observe diagnostic accuracy of the measures examined. Results Percentage Consonants Correct–Revised was found to be a good indicator of phonological ability in both monolingual and bilingual English-speaking children at the age of 5;0. No significant differences were found between language groups on any of the measures examined. Conclusions Our results suggest that traditional measures of phonological ability for monolinguals could provide good diagnostic accuracy for bilingual children at the age of 5;0 years. These findings are preliminary, and children younger than 5;0 years should be examined for risk of misdiagnosis.

Assessment of Preschool Narrative Skills

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allyssa McCabe ◽  
Pamela Rosenthal Rollins
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Early Identification ◽  
Narrative Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Children At Risk ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Narrative Skill ◽  
Discourse Skills

The assessment of discourse skills in young children is an important responsibility facing clinicians today. Early identification of problems in discourse skills and, more specifically, narrative abilities is especially important for identifying children at risk for later learning and literacy-related difficulties. Despite this, few tools are available for assessing narrative skills in preschoolers. In this article we provide information concerning preschool narrative development in typically developing, North American, Caucasian, English-speaking children. Methods are suggested for assessing narrative skill of children with language impairment and children developing language normally. Transcripts of narratives from these children are presented, along with specific recommendations for evaluating these narratives.

Lexical decision task for taxonomic and thematic categorization in typically developing Kannada-English-speaking bilingual children

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shilpa Nanjappa ◽  
Sandra Sebastian ◽  
M.S. Deepa
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Taxonomic Relation ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Female Children ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractThe present study investigated the association between the taxonomic, thematic and combined (taxonomic-thematic) conditions during the lexical decision task in Kannada-English speaking bilingual children. Further, the study explored the nature of categorization skills in typically developing Kannada-English speaking bilingual children with respect to the taxonomy and thematic aspects across gender.Considered for the study were 20 preschool children including ten boys and ten girls in the age range of 4–5 years. A total of 50 pictures, including ten target, ten taxonomically related, ten thematically related and 20 distracters were taken from an internet source. Three tasks were introduced to examine the association of the pictures based on taxonomic, thematic and combined conditions. For the first and second task (considered as Experiment I), the children were expected to relate pictures based on taxonomic relationship followed by thematic relationship in the second task. For the final task (Experiment II), both relationships (taxonomic and thematic) were given for each target picture, and the children were expected to relate it with either one of them. Responses were scored and statistically analyzed.There was a significant difference in the performances between male and female children for the taxonomic condition but not for the other two tasks (i.e. thematic and combined conditions). The comparison across three conditions revealed that the performance of those children varied between the conditions. Further, on pair-wise comparison, there was a significant difference for both combined-thematic and combined-taxonomic conditions but not for taxonomic and thematic conditions.The study supports the phenomenon of “thematic to taxonomic shift”, which is found to be emerging in pre-school children. This occurs differently among male and female children. The preferences of thematic relation as opposed to taxonomic relation is highlighted in the present study.

scholarly journals Number dissimilarities facilitate the comprehension of relative clauses in children with (Grammatical) Specific Language Impairment

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 811-841 ◽  
Author(s):  
FLAVIA ADANI ◽  
MATTEO FORGIARINI ◽  
MARIA TERESA GUASTI ◽  
HEATHER K. J. VAN DER LELY
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
English Speaking

ABSTRACTThis study investigates whether number dissimilarities on subject and object DPs facilitate the comprehension of subject- and object-extracted centre-embedded relative clauses in children with Grammatical Specific Language Impairment (G-SLI). We compared the performance of a group of English-speaking children with G-SLI (mean age: 12;11) with that of two groups of younger typically developing (TD) children, matched on grammar and receptive vocabulary, respectively. All groups were more accurate on subject-extracted relative clauses than object-extracted ones and, crucially, they all showed greater accuracy for sentences with dissimilar number features (i.e., one singular, one plural) on the head noun and the embedded DP. These findings are interpreted in the light of current psycholinguistic models of sentence comprehension in TD children and provide further insight into the linguistic nature of G-SLI.

scholarly journals Syntactic Versus Memory Accounts of the Sentence Comprehension Deficits of Specific Language Impairment: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
pp. 1491-1504 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Montgomery ◽  
Ronald B. Gillam ◽  
Julia L. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Proper Modification

Purpose Compared with same-age typically developing peers, school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) exhibit significant deficits in spoken sentence comprehension. They also demonstrate a range of memory limitations. Whether these 2 deficit areas are related is unclear. The present review article aims to (a) review 2 main theoretical accounts of SLI sentence comprehension and various studies supporting each and (b) offer a new, broader, more integrated memory-based framework to guide future SLI research, as we believe the available evidence favors a memory-based perspective of SLI comprehension limitations. Method We reviewed the literature on the sentence comprehension abilities of English-speaking children with SLI from 2 theoretical perspectives. Results The sentence comprehension limitations of children with SLI appear to be more fully captured by a memory-based perspective than by a syntax-specific deficit perspective. Conclusions Although a memory-based view appears to be the better account of SLI sentence comprehension deficits, this view requires refinement and expansion. Current memory-based perspectives of adult sentence comprehension, with proper modification, offer SLI investigators new, more integrated memory frameworks within which to study and better understand the sentence comprehension abilities of children with SLI.

scholarly journals Utility of a Language Screening Measure for Predicting Risk for Language Impairment in Bilinguals

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirza J. Lugo-Neris ◽  
Elizabeth D. Peña ◽  
Lisa M. Bedore ◽  
Ronald B. Gillam
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Screening Measure ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Discriminant Analyses ◽  
Language Screening ◽  
Larger Sample

Purpose This study evaluated the accuracy of an experimental version of the Bilingual English Spanish Oral Screener (BESOS; Peña, Bedore, Iglesias, Gutiérrez-Clellen, & Goldstein, 2008) for predicting the long-term risk for language impairment (LI) for a matched group of preschool-aged Spanish–English bilingual children with and without LI. Method A total of 1,029 Spanish–English bilingual children completed the BESOS before entering kindergarten. A subset of 167 participants completed a follow-up language evaluation in 1st grade. Twenty-one of these children were identified as having LI and were matched to a group of 21 typically developing peers from the larger sample. A series of discriminant analyses were used to determine the combination of scores on the BESOS that most accurately predicted 2 years later which children presented with and without LI. Results The linear combination of the semantics and morphosyntax scores in the best language resulted in predictive sensitivity of 95.2% and predictive specificity of 71.4%, with an overall accuracy of 81% for predicting risk for LI. Conclusion A bilingual language screener administered before kindergarten can be useful for predicting risk for LI in bilingual children in 1st grade.

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