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Ward L, Polišenská K, Bannard C. Sentence Repetition as a Diagnostic Tool for Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2024; 67:2191-2221. [PMID: 38787301 DOI: 10.1044/2024_jslhr-23-00490] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/25/2024]
Abstract
PURPOSE This systematic review and multilevel meta-analysis examines the accuracy of sentence repetition (SR) tasks in distinguishing between typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental language disorder (DLD). It explores variation in the way that SR tasks are administered and/or evaluated and examines whether variability in the reported ability of SR to detect DLD is related to these differences. METHOD Four databases were searched to identify studies that had used an SR task on groups of monolingual children with DLD and TD children. Searches produced 3,459 articles, of which, after screening, 66 were included in the systematic review. A multilevel meta-analysis was then conducted using 46 of these studies. Multiple preregistered subgroup analyses were conducted in order to explore the sources of heterogeneity. RESULTS The systematic review found a great deal of methodological variation, with studies spanning 19 languages, 39 SR tasks, and four main methods of production scoring. There was also variation in study design, with different sampling (clinical and population sampling) and matching (age and language matching) methods. The overall meta-analysis found that, on average, TD children outperformed children with DLD on the SR tasks by 2.08 SDs. Subgroup analyses found that effect size only varied as a function of the matching method and language of the task. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that SR tasks can distinguish children with DLD from both age- and language-matched samples of TD children. The usefulness of SR appears robust to most kinds of task and study variation. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25864405.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leah Ward
- Division of Psychology, Communication and Human Neuroscience, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
| | - Kamila Polišenská
- Division of Psychology, Communication and Human Neuroscience, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
- Department of Language and Communication Science, City University of London, United Kingdom
| | - Colin Bannard
- Department of Linguistics and English Language, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
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Dubé D, Elin Thordardottir. Using semantic verbal fluency to estimate the relative and absolute vocabulary size of bilinguals: An exploratory study of children and adolescents. JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2024; 111:106450. [PMID: 39043002 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2024.106450] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2022] [Revised: 06/13/2024] [Accepted: 07/05/2024] [Indexed: 07/25/2024]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION The full assessment of bilingual children often involves at least one language for which formal vocabulary tests are lacking and which the examiner does not speak. We examined, in a sample of children with typical development (TD), whether a semantic verbal fluency task, typically used in research as a measure of executive function, could be used in the place of a formal vocabulary test to estimate vocabulary knowledge when formal tests are not available. METHOD 113 TD monolingual French speakers and TD bilinguals and with varying degrees of exposure to French, age 6 to 17 years, completed tests of vocabulary knowledge and semantic verbal fluency. A subset of 64 participants spoke French and English and were tested in both languages. Verbal fluency measures calculated using a traditional method which uses specific rules for superordinate categories and for animals of different sex and age and a simplified scoring method which simply counts all words produced, included the total number of words produced in each language, Total Vocabulary and Conceptual Vocabulary measures combining both languages, as well as analyses of lexical composition and word frequency within the study sample. RESULTS Linear regressions revealed that the number of words produced predicted vocabulary size in a language-specific way, with slightly stronger predictions made by the simplified scoring method. As expected, bilinguals produced more words and more unique words in their language of greater exposure, while different exposure groups were equivalent in measures combining both languages, including their Total vocabulary and Conceptual vocabulary. Producing unusual words (infrequently produced in the study sample) indicated higher vocabulary scores. CONCLUSIONS This study supports the use of the verbal fluency task as a quick and simple tool to obtain a rough estimate of vocabulary size in TD monolinguals and bilinguals. This tool shows promise as well in clinical work with other populations, subject to further verification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daphnée Dubé
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, 2001 Av. McGill College 8th floor, Montréal, QC H3A 1G1, Canada; Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Réadaptation du Montréal Métropolitain (CRIR), Centre de Réadaptation en Déficience Physique Raymond-Dewar of the IURDPM, 2222, Avenue Laurier Est, Montréal, QC H2H 1C4, Canada
| | - Elin Thordardottir
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, 2001 Av. McGill College 8th floor, Montréal, QC H3A 1G1, Canada; Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Réadaptation du Montréal Métropolitain (CRIR), Centre de Réadaptation en Déficience Physique Raymond-Dewar of the IURDPM, 2222, Avenue Laurier Est, Montréal, QC H2H 1C4, Canada.
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Öberg L, Bohnacker U. Beyond Language Scores: How Language Exposure Informs Assessment of Nonword Repetition, Vocabulary and Narrative Macrostructure in Bilingual Turkish/Swedish Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder. CHILDREN (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2024; 11:704. [PMID: 38929283 PMCID: PMC11202042 DOI: 10.3390/children11060704] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2024] [Revised: 05/25/2024] [Accepted: 05/30/2024] [Indexed: 06/28/2024]
Abstract
As in many other countries, baseline data concerning the linguistic development of bilingual children in Sweden are lacking, and suitable methods for identifying developmental language disorder (DLD) in bilinguals are lacking as well. This study presents reference data from 108 typically developing (TD) Turkish/Swedish-speaking children aged 4;0-8;1, for a range of language tasks developed specifically for the assessment of bilinguals (LITMUS test battery, COST Action IS0804). We report on different types of nonword repetition (NWR) tasks (language-specific and language-independent), receptive and expressive vocabulary (Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks, CLTs), and narrative macrostructure comprehension and production (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives, MAIN) in Turkish, the children's home language, and in Swedish, the language of schooling and society. Performance was investigated in relation to age, language exposure, type of task, and (for NWR and narratives) vocabulary size. There was a positive development with age for all tasks, but effects of language exposure and vocabulary size differed between tasks. Six bilingual Turkish/Swedish children with DLD were individually compared to the TD children. TD/DLD performance overlapped substantially, particularly for NWR, and more so for the production than the comprehension tasks. Surprisingly, the discriminatory potential was poor for both language-specific and language-independent NWR. DLD case studies underscored the importance of interpreting language scores in relation to exposure history, and the need for an increased emphasis on functional language skills as reported by parents and teachers when assessing and diagnosing DLD in bilinguals.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ute Bohnacker
- Department of Linguistics & Philology, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 635, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden;
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Delcenserie A, Genesee F, Champoux F. Delayed auditory experience results in past tense production difficulties and working memory deficits in children with cochlear implants: A comparison with children with developmental language disorder. Neuropsychologia 2024; 196:108817. [PMID: 38355036 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108817] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2023] [Revised: 02/01/2024] [Accepted: 02/05/2024] [Indexed: 02/16/2024]
Abstract
Extent evidence has shown that morphosyntax is one of the most challenging linguistic areas for children with atypical early language experiences. Over the last couple of years, comparisons between deaf children with CIs and children with DLD have gained interest - as cases of atypical early language experiences, including, but not restricted to, delayed onset of exposure to language input and language-processing difficulties. Evidence suggests that the morphosyntactic difficulties experienced by deaf children with CIs and children with DLD are very similar in nature. However, the few studies that have directly compared both groups are inconclusive, with deaf children with CIs either performing significantly better or on par with children with DLD. These differences in findings can be attributed, in part at least, to a failure to implement essential methodological controls - even more so given that deaf children with CIs comprise a very diverse population. The goal of the present study was to directly compare the performance of deaf children with CIs to that of children with DLD on a morphosyntactic ability known to be particularly difficult for both groups. Specifically, the present study conducted a detailed examination of the past tense marking abilities of deaf children with CIs and children with DLD while controlling for factors specific to deaf children with CIs, for children's basic cognitive abilities as well as for children's age, sex assigned at birth, and SES. Past tense verbs are particularly relevant as they are used as a marker of developmental language disorder (DLD) in children learning French. Moreover, extent evidence shows that deaf children with CIs and children with DLD have important WM difficulties, but also that there is an association between auditory perception, processing abilities, and working memory (WM) abilities as well as with the acquisition of morphological features, including tense marking. Unfortunately, no study has examined the relation between the accurate production of past tense verbs and WM abilities in children with CIs and children with DLD learning French. Fifteen deaf children with CIs between 5 and 7 years of age were compared to 15 children with DLD and to 15 typically-developing monolingual controls (MON), matched on important variables, using a past tense elicitation task as well as measures of phonological and nonverbal WM abilities. The results confirm that the deaf children with CIs and the children with DLD both performed significantly lower than the MON controls on the past tense elicitation task - suggesting that difficulties with past tense verbs in French might not only be a marker of DLD but, instead, a correlate of atypical language acquisition. Of importance, the present study is the first to show that deaf children with CIs perform significantly lower than children with DLD on a past tense elicitation task - highlighting the importance of using methodological controls. As well, significant correlations were found between the performance of the deaf children with CIs and of the children with DLD on the past tense elicitation task and their phonological and nonverbal WM abilities. Taken together with previous studies conducted in the same populations, this represents another evidence suggesting that early atypical language experiences result in language and WM deficits, including morphosyntactic difficulties.
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Delcenserie A, Genesee F, Champoux F. Exposure to sign language prior and after cochlear implantation increases language and cognitive skills in deaf children. Dev Sci 2024:e13481. [PMID: 38327110 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13481] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2023] [Revised: 11/06/2023] [Accepted: 11/18/2023] [Indexed: 02/09/2024]
Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that deaf children with CIs exposed to nonnative sign language from hearing parents can attain age-appropriate vocabularies in both sign and spoken language. It remains to be explored whether deaf children with CIs who are exposed to early nonnative sign language, but only up to implantation, also benefit from this input and whether these benefits also extend to memory abilities, which are strongly linked to language development. The present study examined the impact of deaf children's early short-term exposure to nonnative sign input on their spoken language and their phonological memory abilities. Deaf children who had been exposed to nonnative sign input before and after cochlear implantation were compared to deaf children who never had any exposure to sign input as well as to children with typical hearing. The children were between 5;1 and 7;1 years of age at the time of testing and were matched on age, sex, and socioeconomic status. The results suggest that even short-term exposure to nonnative sign input has positive effects on general language and phonological memory abilities as well as on nonverbal working memory-with total length of exposure to sign input being the best predictor of deaf children's performance on these measures. The present data suggest that even access to early short-term nonnative visual language input is beneficial for the language and phonological memory abilities of deaf children with cochlear implants, suggesting also that parents should not be discouraged from learning and exposing their child to sign language. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: This is the first study to examine the effects of early short-term exposure to nonnative sign input on French-speaking children with cochlear implants' spoken language and memory abilities. Early short-term nonnative exposure to sign input can have positive consequences for the language and phonological memory abilities of deaf children with CIs. Extended exposure to sign input has some additional and important benefits, allowing children to perform on par with children with typical hearing.
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Affiliation(s)
- A Delcenserie
- Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Universite de Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | | | - F Champoux
- School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Universite de Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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Lindfors H, Hansson K, Pakulak E, Cohn N, Andersson A. Semantic processing of verbal narratives compared to semantic processing of visual narratives: an ERP study of school-aged children. Front Psychol 2024; 14:1253509. [PMID: 38282837 PMCID: PMC10812112 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1253509] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/22/2023] [Indexed: 01/30/2024] Open
Abstract
There is a misconception that pictures are easy to comprehend, which is problematic in pedagogical practices that include pictures. For example, if a child has difficulties with verbal narration to picture sequences, it may be interpreted as specific to spoken language even though the child may have additional difficulties with comprehension of visual narratives in the form of picture sequences. The purpose of the present study was therefore to increase our understanding of semantic processing in the pictorial domain in relation to semantic processing in the verbal domain, focusing on 9-13 years-old children with typical language development. To this end, we measured electrical brain responses (event related potentials, ERPs) in 17 children to (i) pictures (panels) that were predicted versus unpredicted in sequences of panels that conveyed visual narratives and (ii) words that were predicted versus unpredicted in sentences that conveyed verbal narratives. Results demonstrated similarities as there were no significant difference in the magnitude of the N400 effect across domains. The only difference between domains was the predicted difference in distribution, that is, a more posterior N400 effect in the verbal domain than in the pictorial domain. The study contributes to an increased understanding of the complexity of processing of visual narratives and its shared features with processing of verbal narratives, which should be considered in pedagogical practices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hanna Lindfors
- Linnaeus Language Processing Lab, Department of Swedish, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
| | - Kristina Hansson
- Logopedics, Phoniatrics and Audiology, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Eric Pakulak
- Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Neil Cohn
- Visual Language Lab, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands
| | - Annika Andersson
- Linnaeus Language Processing Lab, Department of Swedish, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
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Balilah AMA, Archibald LMD, Said FFS. Heritage language learners of English: Linguistic gaps and cognitive strengths. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2023; 25:873-884. [PMID: 36436028 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2022.2141322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study examined whether Heritage Language Learners (HLLs) of English display profile effects in their performance on knowledge- and processing-dependent measures relative to the standardised mean scores of monolingual speakers. The study also investigated the influence of several experiential factors on HLL performance. METHOD Participants were 59 Arabic-speaking HLLs from six to nine years old. The children completed a battery of linguistic tests in their L1 and L2, as well as cognitive measures of short-term and working memory and non-verbal intelligence. RESULT Significantly lower standardised scores were observed for HLLs as compared to the standardised mean scores on all Arabic/English language tasks except L2 word reading. HLLs scored at or above age-level expectations on cognitive measures except the Arabic nonword repetition task. Stepwise regression analyses examining variance in HLLs' performance, age and richness of environment consistently explained HLLs' performance in L1 Arabic, but different factors accounted for HLLs' performance in English depending on the task. Age was the only variable that consistently explained variance in performance on the cognitive measures. CONCLUSION The results suggest that processing-dependent measures may be less sensitive to difference in language experience than traditional knowledge-based measures such as standardised measures of language and vocabulary.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lisa M D Archibald
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
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Xue J, Zhuo J, Li P, Li H. Locus of nonword repetition impairments in Mandarin-speaking children with developmental language disorder. RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2023; 142:104605. [PMID: 37806022 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104605] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2022] [Revised: 07/30/2023] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/10/2023]
Abstract
Current theories of nonword repetition (NWR) impairments for children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are developed predominantly using data from Indo-European languages. Seldom have relevant theories been attested to the morph-syllabic language Mandarin Chinese. The present research aimed to explore the locus of NWR impairments for Mandarin children with DLD. 80 Mandarin-speaking children with typical development (TD) and 80 children with DLD were compared on nonword repetition accuracy and error types. It was a three-factor design with language groups (children with DLD vs. TD children) as the between-subjects factor, and components (onset, rhyme, and tone) and syllable numbers (one to four syllables) as the within-subjects factors. The analysis showed that both groups had less accuracy on the two phonological segments (onset and rhyme) relative to tone and showed more errors in multi-syllable nonwords. Children with DLD exhibited more noticeable errors in onsets and rhymes, although they did not display similar issues with tones compared to TD children. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that children with DLD had pronounced errors in onsets, especially in repeating multi-syllable nonwords. Error type analysis revealed that children with DLD displayed more multiple than single errors in nonword repetition. The results support the "segment-to-frame association" theory, suggesting that Mandarin children with DLD are constrained in the concurrent mapping process between onsets, rhymes, and tones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jin Xue
- University of Science and Technology Beijing, School of Foreign Studies, 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China.
| | - Junjing Zhuo
- University of Science and Technology Beijing, School of Foreign Studies, 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Panpan Li
- University of Science and Technology Beijing, School of Foreign Studies, 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Heng Li
- Ruiting Primary School, Fuqing 350300, Fujian Province, China
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Charles CM, MacLeod AAN, Sutton A. Developmental patterns of non-word repetition by monolingual and bilingual school-aged children. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2023:1-13. [PMID: 37778369 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2023.2236333] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/03/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The present study examines cross-sectional trends in performance on a quasi-universal non-word repetition (NWR) task. It also considers whether NWR performance is dependent on levels of exposure to a language and compares the performance of bilingual children across their two languages. METHOD A cross-sectional design was employed. The English and French quasi-universal NWR tasks, featuring stimuli from two to five syllables in length, was administered to Canadian school-aged monolinguals and two groups of bilinguals: those who encountered their second language in early childhood and those who encountered their second language at school entry. RESULT When evaluated in English, the early-exposure bilinguals produced significantly fewer errors than the school-entry exposure bilinguals and the English monolingual groups. When evaluated in French, the early-exposure bilinguals and the French monolinguals produced significantly fewer errors than the school-entry exposure bilinguals. Compared across languages, the French monolinguals produced fewer errors on the French version of the NWR task than the English monolinguals did on the English version of the same task. In both languages and across all analyses, the youngest age group (7-8 years) produced more errors than the two older groups (9-10 years and 11-12 years). CONCLUSION The quasi-universal NWR task showed sensitivity to improvements from 7 to 11 years of age in English and up to 9 years of age in French. Better performance in French may be due to the relatively greater frequency of multisyllabic words in that language. The development and use of this particular NWR task with monolinguals and bilinguals-in both of their languages-contribute to a deeper understanding of quasi-universal NWR performance in typically developing children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina M Charles
- School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| | - Andrea A N MacLeod
- Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
| | - Ann Sutton
- School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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Cerro NB, López-Villaseñor ML, Pascual IR, Altares SM. A Sentence Repetition Task in Spanish language: a valid tool for early language assessment. Codas 2023; 35:e20220164. [PMID: 37729255 PMCID: PMC10546988 DOI: 10.1590/2317-1782/20232022164en] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2022] [Accepted: 10/05/2022] [Indexed: 09/22/2023] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE Sentence Repetition Tasks (SRT) have been widely used to assess early language abilities in different languages and populations. In addition, it has been proved that performance in SRTs serve as a clinical marker to detect language difficulties. However, most of the research has been conducted in English language and with children older than 4 years of age. Despite this scarcity, [1] developed a SRT for monolingual Spanish-speaking children between 2 and 4 years of age. Initial findings showed that it is a useful tool for discriminating children with different linguistic levels. In addition, the task showed concurrent validity with a nonword repetition task. In the current study we want to explore the predictive validity of this task. METHODS We conducted a longitudinal study including 20 monolingual Spanish-Speaking children who were tested twice, at 33 months of age and six months later. In addition to the SRT, participants completed a nonword repetition task [2] and the Spanish version of the Merrill-Palmer-R Developmental Scales [3]. RESULTS showed strong and positive relationships between the different tests when first assessed. We also found strong and predictive relationships between the SRT at time 1 and SRT and the Merrill-Palmer-R at time 2. CONCLUSION We conclude that the SRT developed [1] is a valid tool for examining early language abilities and its changes over time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalia Bravo Cerro
- Departamento de Pedagogía, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Castilla la Mancha - UCLM - Talavera de la Reina, Toledo, España.
- Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia - UNED - Madrid, España.
| | - Miguel Lázaro López-Villaseñor
- Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Procesos Cognitivos y Logopedia, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid - UCM - Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España.
| | - Irene Rujas Pascual
- Departamento de Investigación y Psicología en Educación, Universidad Complutense de Madrid - UCM - Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España.
| | - Sonia Mariscal Altares
- Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia - UNED - Madrid, España.
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Russell KMH, Redmond SM, Ash AC. Psycholinguistic profiling of children with sluggish cognitive tempo. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2023; 37:828-844. [PMID: 35748339 PMCID: PMC9789211 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2022.2092422] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2021] [Revised: 05/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/14/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Language disorders are frequently comorbid with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT), a second attention disorder, may potentially explain some of the links between language disorders and ADHD. In this study we examined the psycholinguistic abilities of 207 children (mean age 7;10) with and without clinically significant levels of SCT symptoms to determine the degree to which symptoms of language disorder co-occur in cases of SCT. Analyses of children's tense-marking, nonword repetition, and sentence recall indicated that deficits in these areas were not associated with SCT. Instead, SCT appears to be more closely aligned with features of social (pragmatic) communication disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kirsten M Hannig Russell
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Sean M Redmond
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Andrea C Ash
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
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Eisenwort B, Tilis M, Schmid C, Diendorfer-Radner G. Bilingual children acquiring Russian and German in Vienna: nonword repetition correlates with stronger but not with weaker language. NEUROPSYCHIATRIE : KLINIK, DIAGNOSTIK, THERAPIE UND REHABILITATION : ORGAN DER GESELLSCHAFT OSTERREICHISCHER NERVENARZTE UND PSYCHIATER 2023; 37:136-144. [PMID: 36745308 PMCID: PMC10491516 DOI: 10.1007/s40211-023-00456-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2022] [Accepted: 12/31/2022] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Nonword repetition tests (NWRT) can be useful tools together with other assessment procedures for diagnosing a developmental learning disorder in bilingual children. Concerning typically developing children, however, the link between NWRT performance and language development is still unclear. The present study contributes to this discussion by investigating the link between language-dependent NWRT performance, language development, and language exposure. METHODS A total of 20 simultaneously bilingual Russian-German children, aged 4-6 years, were tested with "The Russian language proficiency test for multilingual children (SRUK)" and "Patholinguistische Diagnostik bei Sprachentwicklungsstörungen (PDSS)" as well as language-specific nonwords for Russian and German. RESULTS Most children scored within the mean range in SRUK. In PDSS they scored two standard deviations below the mean range in most of the subtests. NWRT in Russian significantly correlated with the NWRT in German and also positively correlated with both comprehension and production in Russian. In contrast, the German NWRT did not correlate with comprehension or with production in German. Moreover, the correlation between the German NWRT and the comprehension of grammatical structures in Russian was significant, and the correlations between the German NWRT and the two other Russian language development tests just failed to reach significance. CONCLUSION High scores in both the Russian and the German NWRT offer evidence that the ability to repeat language-specific nonwords does not differ depending on language exposure. The aim to distinguish between typical and atypical language development based on NWRT can be reached only when NWRT and all possible influencing factors in typically developed children are analyzed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brigitte Eisenwort
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
- Comprehensive Center of Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
| | - Maksim Tilis
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center of Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Carolin Schmid
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria
- Comprehensive Center of Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Acoustics Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
| | - Gabriela Diendorfer-Radner
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Division of Phoniatrics-Logopedics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Rioux EJ, Thordardottir E. Bilingual Adolescents' Complex Syntax Production in Both Languages Across Conversational and Expository Contexts. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2023:1-17. [PMID: 37494896 DOI: 10.1044/2023_jslhr-22-00193] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/28/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Bilingual development has been shown to be highly dependent on language-specific exposure. This study extended the study of bilingual development to adolescence and to the production of complex syntax in two contexts: conversation and expository discourse. METHOD English-French bilinguals (EFbil; n = 27) and French L1 speakers (n = 14) aged 12 to 17 years produced French and English conversational and expository samples. Measures of mean length of T-units and clausal density were used, as well as a measure of detailed subordinate clause diversity developed in this study. RESULTS Both groups produced more complex syntax in expository discourse compared to conversation and performed very similarly overall. Significant group differences were found in French subordinate clause diversity but not in sentence length or clause density. For EFbil, differences between languages were unexpectedly greater in conversation. Previous language exposure impacted both languages of the EFbil and in both contexts. CONCLUSIONS This study is the first to report on the spontaneous syntactic use of bilingual adolescents in both their languages. Subtle but significant differences were found in the syntactic skills of the two groups. Expository and conversational contexts each provided unique information on aspects of complex syntactic development, calling into question the idea that the ability to produce a more complex context guarantees conversational abilities. Finally, for the EFbil, previous language exposure impacted both languages, particularly in conversation. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23713152.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eve Julie Rioux
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Elin Thordardottir
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada
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Ramírez R, Huang BH, Salazar K, Eik M. Predictors of Reading Development Among School-Age Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Scoping Review. Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch 2023:1-14. [PMID: 37059083 DOI: 10.1044/2023_lshss-22-00093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/16/2023] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE Systematic reviews of bilingual children's reading development are very limited, and none of which solely focus on predictors of reading difficulties among those with developmental language disorder (DLD). The present scoping review fills an important need by analyzing the recent research literature on the reading outcomes of bilingual children with DLD. Specifically, this study aims to identify predictors of reading difficulties among bilingual children with DLD to improve early identification. METHOD The search parameters used in this scoping review included peer-reviewed journal articles written in English from 2000 to 2022 in order to synthesize the most recent empirical work, a focus on early childhood through early adolescent (pre-K to eighth grade) bilinguals with DLD, and research designs that included case study, descriptive, cross-sectional, quasi-experimental, longitudinal, and qualitative methods. RESULTS The present review yielded nine articles, which all examined the predictive validity of either a measure or task with the ultimate goal of improving early identification of reading difficulties. Significant predictors of reading difficulties, such as rapid naming and blending in first language (L1), were found to aid in identifying bilingual children who have DLD. CONCLUSIONS To conclude, this review demonstrates that this is a highly under-researched topic. To have ended up including only nine articles that fit the criteria of our search reveals a large gap in the research and a limitation of this review.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rica Ramírez
- Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching, University of Texas at San Antonio
| | - Becky H Huang
- Department of Teaching and Learning and Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, Ohio State University, Columbus
| | | | - Mari Eik
- Department of Counseling, University of Texas at San Antonio
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Talli I, Kotsoni P, Stavrakaki S, Sprenger-Charolles L. Assessing phonological short-term memory in Greek: Reliability and validity of a non-word repetition test. Front Psychol 2023; 13:904268. [PMID: 36896028 PMCID: PMC9990871 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.904268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2022] [Accepted: 08/01/2022] [Indexed: 02/23/2023] Open
Abstract
This study explores the reliability and validity of a NWR task in a large cohort of 387 TD Greek-speaking children aged 7-13 years attending elementary (Grades 2-6) and secondary school (Grade 1), divided into six age groups. Further, the relationship between NWR and reading fluency skills as well as the predictive value of the NWR on reading fluency skills in TD children are examined. To investigate the external reliability of the NWR task, test-retest reliability was performed, and excellent test-retest reliability was found. Internal reliability was explored with Cronbach's alpha coefficient and good reliability was found. To explore convergent validity, correlation analysis between NWR and reading fluency was conducted and significant and strong correlations were found for all age groups excepted 2 (ages 9-10 and 12-13). To examine predictive validity, regression analysis was conducted between these two variables and showed that performance on NWR contributed significantly to reading fluency skills, suggesting that NWR skills are a good predictor of reading skills. Finally, it was explored whether the relevant scores increase as a function of age and found significant differences between groups that differed in 2 years or more, while this difference was no longer significant after 10 years. This finding suggests that phonological STM increases in capacity along with age, but only until the age of 10, where it seems to reach a ceiling. In addition, linear regression analysis showed that age contributed significantly to performance on NWR test. To sum up, the present study provides normative data of a NWR test for a wide age range, which does not exist in the Greek language (particularly for ages over 9 years) and it can be concluded that the present NWR test can be successfully used as a reliable and valid measure of phonological STM in the age range that was examined in this study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ioanna Talli
- Department of Italian Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Panagiota Kotsoni
- Department of Italian Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Stavroula Stavrakaki
- Department of Italian Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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Meziane RS, Macleod AAN. Internal and external factors contributing to variability in consonant accuracy of Arabic-French simultaneous bilingual children. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2023; 50:132-154. [PMID: 36503550 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000921000775] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
This study aims to describe the relationships between child-internal and child-external factors and the consonant accuracy of bilingual children. More specifically, the study looks at internal factors: expressive and receptive vocabulary, and external factors: language exposure and language status, of a group of 4-year-old bilingual Arabic-French children. We measured the consonant accuracy of the children by the percentage of correct consonants in a Picture-Naming Task and a Non-Word Repetition Task in each language. The results suggest a significant relationship between vocabulary and consonant accuracy. A cross-language correlation was observed between the expressive vocabulary level of the majority language (French) and the consonant accuracy of the minority language (Arabic). Also, a significant correlation was found between Arabic language exposure and Arabic consonant accuracy. Finally, consonant accuracy was significantly higher in French tasks than in Arabic, despite the individual differences of the children.
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Altman C, Harel E, Meir N, Iluz-Cohen P, Walters J, Armon-Lotem S. Using a monolingual screening test for assessing bilingual children. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2022; 36:1132-1152. [PMID: 34844504 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2021.2000644] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2021] [Revised: 08/04/2021] [Accepted: 10/21/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Bilingual language development is different from monolingual language development. The lack of appropriate assessment tools geared to the bilingual population has led to inaccurate over-diagnosis of bilingual children with typical language development (TLD) as children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and under-diagnosis of bilingual children with DLD. The present paper addresses this challenge by focusing on Hebrew as a second language (L2) of bilingual preschool children whose first language (L1) is either English or Russian, taking into consideration both chronological age (CA) and age of onset of bilingualism (AOB). This study aimed to generate bilingual standards for a monolingual screening test, Goralnik Screening Test for Hebrewby arriving at appropriate bilingual typical development cut-off points. A total of 443 bilingual Hebrew speaking children (397 with TLD and 46 with DLD), ages 61-78 months (M = 70; SD = 4), 199 with L1 English and 244 with L1 Russian, took part in the study. The results demonstrate low diagnostic accuracy when a monolingual test with monolingual norms is used for bilingual children, in contrast with increased diagnostic accuracy when bilingual standards are used for bilingual children. The paper concludes by showing the importance of bilingual standards when assessing clinical populations with varying ages of acquisition, and in particular, for those who were exposed to their second language after the age of four.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carmit Altman
- Faculty of Education, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
- Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Efrat Harel
- Faculty of Education, Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and Arts, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Natalia Meir
- Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
- Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Peri Iluz-Cohen
- Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Joel Walters
- Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Sharon Armon-Lotem
- Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
- Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
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Taha J, Carioti D, Stucchi N, Chailleux M, Granocchio E, Sarti D, De Salvatore M, Guasti MT. Identifying the risk of dyslexia in bilingual children: The potential of language-dependent and language-independent tasks. Front Psychol 2022; 13:935935. [PMID: 36506974 PMCID: PMC9730291 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.935935] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2022] [Accepted: 10/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigates the linguistic processing and non-linguistic cognitive abilities of monolingual and bilingual children with and without reading difficulties and examines the relationship between these skills and reading. There were 72 Italian-speaking children: 18 monolingual good readers (MONO-GR, Mage = 10;4), 19 monolingual poor readers (MONO-PR, Mage = 10;3), 21 bilingual good readers (BI-GR, Mage = 10;6), and 16 bilingual poor readers (BI-PR, Mage = 10;6). All bilingual children spoke Italian as their L2. Children completed a battery of standardized Italian reading tests, language-dependent tasks: nonword repetition (NWR), sentence repetition (SR), and phonological awareness (PA), and language-independent tasks: timing anticipation, beat synchronization, inhibition control, auditory reaction time, and rapid automatized naming (RAN). Poor readers scored below good readers on the language-dependent tasks, including NWR, PA, and SR. Beat synchronization was the only language-independent task sensitive to reading ability, with poor readers showing greater variability than good readers in tapping to fast rhythms. SR was the only task influenced by language experience as bilinguals underperformed monolinguals on the task. Moreover, there were weak to moderate correlations between performance on some language-dependent tasks (NWR, PA), language-independent tasks (inhibition control, RAN), and reading measures. Performance on the experimental tasks (except for RAN) was not associated with the length of exposure to Italian. The results highlight the potential of NWR, PA, SR, and beat synchronization tasks in identifying the risk of dyslexia in bilingual populations. Future research is needed to validate these findings and to establish the tasks' diagnostic accuracy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juhayna Taha
- Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy,*Correspondence: Juhayna Taha,
| | - Desire Carioti
- Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Natale Stucchi
- Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Mathilde Chailleux
- Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Elisa Granocchio
- Developmental Neurology Unit, Foundation IRCCS Neurological Institute Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Daniela Sarti
- Developmental Neurology Unit, Foundation IRCCS Neurological Institute Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Marinella De Salvatore
- Developmental Neurology Unit, Foundation IRCCS Neurological Institute Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
| | - Maria Teresa Guasti
- Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
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Stadtmiller E, Lindner K, Süss A, Gagarina N. Russian-German five-year-olds: What omissions in sentence repetition tell us about linguistic knowledge, memory skills and their interrelation. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2022; 49:869-896. [PMID: 34218821 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000921000325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
In error analyses using sentence repetition data, most authors focus on word types of omissions. The current study considers serial order in omission patterns independent of functional categories. Data was collected from Russian and German sentence repetition tasks performed by 53 five-year-old bilingual children. Number and positions of word omissions were analyzed. Serial order effects were found in both languages: medial errors made up the largest percentage of errors. Then, the position of omissions was compared to visuo-verbal n-back working memory and non-verbal visual forward short-term memory scores using stepwise hierarchical linear regression models, taking into account demographic variables and receptive language. The interaction differed between languages: there was a significant negative association between omissions in the medial position in German and the final position in Russian and the visuo-verbal n-back memory score. Our study contributes to the understanding of how working memory and language are intertwined in sentence repetition.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Assunta Süss
- Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, Germany
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20
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Friesen DC, Ward O, Archibald LMD. Sentence Repetition Performance Differences in Bilingual and Monolingual Children. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2022; 65:2948-2961. [PMID: 35858267 DOI: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-21-00596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study examined language group differences in English syntactic knowledge based on performance on a sentence repetition task. METHOD Fourth and sixth grade students who were monolinguals (n = 30), early bilinguals (i.e., simultaneous; n = 27), or late bilinguals (i.e., sequential; n = 29) completed an English sentence repetition task. Their responses were analyzed as a function of sentence length (short vs. long), sentence type (active vs. passive), phrase type (noun, verb, and prepositional), and word type (content vs. function). RESULTS Overall, early bilinguals' performance did not differ significantly from that of the monolinguals. However, these bilinguals recalled significantly more content words than function words on the long sentences. At each level of analysis, the late bilinguals' performance was less accurate than the other groups. The magnitude of these group differences was larger for passive sentences and prepositional phrases. CONCLUSION Findings highlight areas of syntactic development that differ among groups and should be targeted for additional instruction with English language learners in elementary school.
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Affiliation(s)
- Deanna C Friesen
- Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
| | - Olivia Ward
- Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
| | - Lisa M D Archibald
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
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21
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Eikerling MR, Bloder TS, Lorusso ML. A Nonword Repetition Task Discriminates Typically Developing Italian-German Bilingual Children From Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder: The Role of Language-Specific and Language-Non-specific Nonwords. Front Psychol 2022; 13:826540. [PMID: 35719570 PMCID: PMC9201770 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.826540] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2021] [Accepted: 04/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In bi- and monolingual children, nonword repetition tasks (NWRTs) differentiate between typically developing (TD) and children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Language specificity is a crucial factor in nonword construction especially for multilingual children. While language-specific nonwords seem less artificial than non-specific nonwords, the application of language-specific phonemes may be less suitable for bilingual children who are exposed to the target language less than monolingual peers. This study evaluates the concurrent and predictive value of a novel, computerized NWRT implemented in the MuLiMi web-platform and its potential in the discrimination of bilingual children with and without DLD, investigating the role of nonwords' language specificity. Thirty-seven children (of whom 17 had an objective risk of phonological disorders) with at least one Italian-speaking parent, living and attending kindergartens in Germany were tested with the MuLiMi NWRT and German standardized language tests. Caregivers and kindergarten teachers filled in questionnaires. Fourteen of the children were re-tested after 8-12 months. The results suggest that the new test's concurrent and discriminative validity are good. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences between children with and without (an objective risk of) phonological disorders and a significant interaction between nonword specificity and risk group. Significant correlations of initial scores with follow-up scores collected after 8-12 months were also found, as well as correlations with improvements in language abilities. In conclusion, although both language-specific and language-non-specific nonword repetition can support DLD risk identification in bilingual children, language-specific stimuli appear to be particularly sensitive indicators. This is interpreted as confirming DLD children's reduced sensitivity to frequent, familiar characteristics of the linguistic stimuli. The test's discriminative and concurrent validity showed to be robust to various potentially influencing factors like patterns of language exposure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maren Rebecca Eikerling
- Unit of Neuropsychology of Developmental Disorders, Department of Child Psychopathology, Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy.,Department of Psychology, University Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Theresa Sophie Bloder
- Faculty of Languages and Literatures, Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany
| | - Maria Luisa Lorusso
- Unit of Neuropsychology of Developmental Disorders, Department of Child Psychopathology, Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy
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22
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Prentza A, Tafiadis D, Chondrogianni V, Tsimpli IM. Validation of a Greek Sentence Repetition Task with Typically Developing Monolingual and Bilingual Children. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2022; 51:373-395. [PMID: 35286538 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-022-09853-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/11/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
This study provides a preliminary validation of a Greek Sentence Repetition Task (SRT) with a sample of 110 monolingual and bilingual typically developing (TLD) children and examines the test's ability to distinguish between Greek monolingual children and age-matched Albanian-Greek bilinguals using a Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis. This is the first study to report on the psychometric evaluation of a Greek SRT and its discriminatory ability with typical populations. Since most language assessments are standardized with monolinguals and bilingual children tend to underperform on these compared to monolinguals, it is essential to establish the level of bilingual TLD children's ability on the same tests before moving on to diagnose language impairment in bilinguals. Results showed that the Greek SRT had very high validity and reliability scores, with Accuracy measures being more reliable than Grammaticality measures. The school-age monolingual and bilingual TLD children reached different cut-off scores on this task.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra Prentza
- Department of Linguistics, School of Philology, Faculty of Philosophy, University Campus, 1186, 45110, Ioannina, Greece.
| | - Dionysios Tafiadis
- Department of Speech & Language Therapy, School of Health Sciences, University of Ioannina, University Campus, 1186, 45110, Ioannina, Greece
| | - Vasiliki Chondrogianni
- Department of Linguistics and English Language, School of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, Dugald Stewart Building, 3 Charles Street, EH8 9AD, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli
- Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge, English Faculty Building, Room TR-11, 9 West Road Cambridge, CB3 9DP, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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Thordardottir E, Reid H. Nonword repetition to identify DLD in older school-age children. ENFANCE 2022. [DOI: 10.3917/enf2.221.0059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022]
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Freeman MR, Schroeder SR. Assessing Language Skills in Bilingual Children: Current Trends in Research and Practice. JOURNAL OF CHILD SCIENCE 2022. [DOI: 10.1055/s-0042-1743575] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
Abstract
AbstractA continuously challenging issue in the field of speech–language pathology is accurately identifying and diagnosing a language disorder in school-aged (pre-kindergarten through 5th grade) bilingual children, as bilingual children are disproportionately under- and overidentified with a language disorder. The current review focuses on the assessment of bilingual children in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, aimed to inform teachers, pediatricians, parents, and other relevant professionals of issues surrounding assessment of these dual-language learners. We examine the barriers to assessing bilingual children for language disorders, such as the lack of availability of bilingual tests, underinformative current best practice guidelines, lack of speech–language pathologist (SLP) training/knowledge of bilingualism, and use of interpreters. We discuss the necessary considerations when SLPs use norm-referenced tests with bilingual children, such as norming samples, accurate identification of a language disorder, reliability and validity, test administration, and potential solutions to using otherwise poorly suited norm-referenced tests. We also consider research on several alternative measures to norm-referenced assessments, including dynamic assessment, nonword repetition, language sampling, nonlinguistic cognition, and parent report. We conclude by synthesizing the information in this review to offer six principles of best practices for bilingual assessment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Max R. Freeman
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, St. John's University, Jamaica, New York, United States
| | - Scott R. Schroeder
- Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, United States
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Kehoe M, Poulin-Dubois D, Friend M. Within- and Cross-Language Relations Between Phonological Memory, Vocabulary, and Grammar in Bilingual Children. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2021; 64:4918-4948. [PMID: 34731575 PMCID: PMC9150685 DOI: 10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2021] [Revised: 06/30/2021] [Accepted: 08/09/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study investigated within-language and between-language associations between phonological memory, vocabulary, and grammar in French-English (n = 43) and Spanish-English (n = 25) bilingual children at 30, 36, and 48 months. It was predicted that phonological memory would display both within-language and between-language relations to language development and that these relations would be stronger at the youngest age. METHOD Bilingual children participated in free-play sessions in both of their languages at each age, from which vocabulary and grammatical information (number of different words and mean length of utterance) was extracted. Vocabulary information was also obtained from parent inventories completed when the children were 30 months and a standardized receptive vocabulary test administered at 36 and 48 months. The children were also administered nonword repetition tests in both of their languages at each age. RESULTS Mixed logistic regression indicated that phonological memory was associated with vocabulary and grammar within the same language and phonological memory in the other language. In two of the four statistical models, phonological memory exhibited positive between-language relations, and in one model, it exhibited negative between-language relations to language development. Results also indicated that within-language and between-languages effects remained constant, or between-language associations decreased during the age range studied. CONCLUSION Overall, the findings provide some support for cross-language associations between phonological memory and lexical and grammatical skills.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret Kehoe
- Department of Speech Therapy and Psycholinguistics, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Diane Poulin-Dubois
- Developmental Cybernetics, Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Margaret Friend
- Center for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, CA
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Hávarðarson G. Accent, Comprehensibility, and Confidence in Second and Third Languages of Adolescents: How Do They Relate to Language Proficiency and Language Interactions? JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2021; 64:4828-4844. [PMID: 34714694 DOI: 10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00077] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study examines the degree to which adolescents in Iceland are judged by native Icelandic speakers to have a foreign accent both in Icelandic and in English, two languages that are learned under different conditions, as the community and school language, and through school and incidental exposure. METHOD Fifty-eight adolescents, 27 with Icelandic as their first language (L1), 21 as their second language (L2), and 10 as one of two L1s read passages in Icelandic and English. Twelve untrained native speakers of Icelandic rated the degree of foreign accent, comprehensibility, and confidence level and selected from multiple-choice options what they thought was the L1 of the speakers. RESULTS Significant group differences were found in Icelandic but not in English. L2 speakers had a significantly greater foreign accent than the other groups in Icelandic; however, there was substantial overlap with some L2 speakers judged to be native and some L1 speakers judged as nonnative. All groups had a significantly greater accent in English than in Icelandic. Accent was judged more sternly than comprehensibility and confidence and related differently to vocabulary proficiency. CONCLUSIONS Accent is typically not considered in studies of bilingual attainment in children for purposes of clinical assessment or educational placement but should be given closer attention. The study confirms previous findings that many young L2 learners have a detectable foreign accent. The overlap with L1 speakers also raises questions about the ideal of a native accent. More research is needed on how accent relates to bilingual and multilingual proficiency and on its impacts on comfort level, ease of communication, choice of language, and language exposure.
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Ortiz JA. Using Nonword Repetition to Identify Language Impairment in Bilingual Children: A Meta-Analysis of Diagnostic Accuracy. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2021; 30:2275-2295. [PMID: 34269597 DOI: 10.1044/2021_ajslp-20-00237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Nonword repetition has been endorsed as a less biased method of assessment for children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, but there are currently no systematic reviews or meta-analyses on its use with bilingual children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate diagnostic accuracy of nonword repetition in the identification of language impairment (LI) in bilingual children. Method Using a key word search of peer-reviewed literature from several large electronic databases, as well as ancestral and forward searches, 13 studies were identified that met the eligibility criteria. Studies were evaluated on the basis of quality of evidence, design characteristics, and reported diagnostic accuracy. A meta-regression analysis, based on study results, was conducted to identify task characteristics that may be associated with better classification accuracy. Results Diagnostic accuracy across studies ranged from poor to good. Bilingual children with LI performed with more difficulty on nonword repetition tasks than those with typical language. Quasi-universal tasks, which account for the phonotactic constraints of multiple languages, exhibited better diagnostic accuracy and resulted in less misidentification of children with typical language than language-specific tasks. Conclusions Evidence suggests that nonword repetition may be a useful tool in the assessment and screening of LI in bilingual children, though it should be used in conjunction with other measures. Quasi-universal tasks demonstrate the potential to further reduce assessment bias, but extant research is limited.
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Affiliation(s)
- José A Ortiz
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park
- Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland, College Park
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Schwob S, Eddé L, Jacquin L, Leboulanger M, Picard M, Oliveira PR, Skoruppa K. Using Nonword Repetition to Identify Developmental Language Disorder in Monolingual and Bilingual Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2021; 64:3578-3593. [PMID: 34407377 DOI: 10.1044/2021_jslhr-20-00552] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Purpose A wealth of studies has assessed the diagnostic value of the nonword repetition task (NWRT) for the detection of developmental language disorder (DLD) in the clinical context of speech and language therapy, first in monolingual children and, more recently, in bilingual children. This review article reviews this literature systematically and conducts a meta-analysis on the discriminative power of this type of task in both populations. Method Three databases were used to select articles based on keyword combinations, which were then reviewed for relevance and methodological rigor based on internationally recognized checklists. From an initial pool of 488 studies, 46 studies were selected for inclusion in the systematic review, and 35 of these studies could be included in a meta-analysis. Results Most of the articles report significant discrimination between children with and without DLD in both monolingual and bilingual contexts, and the meta-analysis shows a large mean effect size. Three factors (age of the child, linguistic status, and language specificity of the task) yielded enough quantitative data for further exploration. Subgroups analysis shows variance in effect sizes, but none of the three factors, neither their interactions, were significant in a metaregression. We discuss how other, less explored factors (e.g., nature of the stimuli, scoring methods) could also contribute to differences in results. Sensitivity and specificity analyses reported in 33 studies confirmed that, despite possible effect size differences, the diagnostic accuracy of the NWRT is generally near thresholds considered to be discriminatory. It generally increases when it is combined with other tasks (e.g., parental questionnaire). Conclusions This review indicates that the NWRT is a promising diagnostic tool to identify children with DLD in monolingual and bilingual contexts with a large mean effect size. However, it seems necessary to choose the precise NWRT materials based on the children's language background and to complement the assessment sessions with other tools in order to ensure diagnosis and to obtain complete language profile of the child. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.15152370.
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Affiliation(s)
- Salomé Schwob
- Institut des sciences logopédiques, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, 2000 Neuchâtel, Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse
| | - Laurane Eddé
- Institut des sciences logopédiques, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, 2000 Neuchâtel, Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse
| | - Laure Jacquin
- Institut des sciences logopédiques, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, 2000 Neuchâtel, Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse
| | - Mégane Leboulanger
- Institut des sciences logopédiques, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, 2000 Neuchâtel, Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse
| | - Margot Picard
- Institut des sciences logopédiques, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, 2000 Neuchâtel, Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse
| | - Patricia Ramos Oliveira
- Institut des sciences logopédiques, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, 2000 Neuchâtel, Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse
| | - Katrin Skoruppa
- Institut des sciences logopédiques, Pierre-à-Mazel 7, 2000 Neuchâtel, Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse
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Guasti MT, White MJ, Bianco G, Arosio F, Camilleri B, Hasson N. Two clinical markers for DLD in monolingual Italian speakers: what can they tell us about second language learners with DLD? CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2021; 35:829-846. [PMID: 33032455 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2020.1830303] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2020] [Revised: 09/25/2020] [Accepted: 09/26/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
A large number of children worldwide are only exposed to their L2 around 3 years of age and can exhibit linguistic behaviours that resemble those of a child with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). This can lead to under- or over-identification of DLD in this population. This study endeavors to contribute to overcoming this problem, by determining whether two specific clinical markers used with the Italian monolingual population can also be used with early L2 acquiring children, namely clitic production and non-word repetition. Our study involved two groups of 5-year-old L2 learners of Italian from various language backgrounds; 18 children had been referred to Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) services (EL2_DLD), and 30 children were typically developing (EL2_TD). The participants completed an Italian clitic production task and a non-word repetition task based on Italian phonotactics. Data was also collected from the participants' caregivers with the ALDeQ Parental Questionnaire to obtain information about the children's L1. Our results suggest that non-word repetition and clitic production in Italian are potentially useful for identifying L2 learners of Italian with DLD, at the age of 5 years. The repetition of non-words is highly accurate in identifying children with DLD among the participants, while clitic production is somewhat less discriminative in this sample. This study is a first step towards uncovering clinical markers that could be used to determine the presence of DLD in children acquiring their L2.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Michelle J White
- Department of Linguistics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
- Department of Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
| | | | - Fabrizio Arosio
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
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Sakhai F, Darouie A, Anderson JD, Dastjerdi-Kazemi M, Golmohammadi G, Bakhshi E. A comparison of the performance of Persian speaking children who do and do not stutter on three nonwords repetition tasks. JOURNAL OF FLUENCY DISORDERS 2021; 67:105825. [PMID: 33429306 DOI: 10.1016/j.jfludis.2020.105825] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2020] [Revised: 10/25/2020] [Accepted: 12/09/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The purpose of the study was to examine the performance of Persian speaking children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) on three nonword repetition tasks, while also focusing on which task and scoring method best differentiates the two groups of children. METHOD Thirty CWS and 30 CWNS between the ages of 5;0 to 6;6 completed three nonword repetition tasks that varied in complexity. Each task was scored using two methods: nonwords correct and phonemes correct. Between-group differences in performance on each task were examined, along with disfluencies for CWS and the task and scoring method that best differentiated the CWS and CWNS. RESULTS The findings revealed that, across all three nonword repetition tasks, the CWS consistently produced fewer nonwords correct and phonemes correct than the CWNS group at virtually all syllable lengths. The CWS produced more disfluencies on longer nonwords than shorter nonwords in all three nonword repetition tasks. The nonword repetition task with lower wordlikeness and more phonologically complex items best differentiated the two groups of children. Findings further revealed that discriminative accuracy was highest for scoring based on the number of phonemes produced correctly. CONCLUSION Findings provide further evidence to suggest that CWS may have difficulty with phonological working memory and/or phonological processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Farhad Sakhai
- Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Akbar Darouie
- Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
| | - Julie D Anderson
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, United States
| | - Mahdi Dastjerdi-Kazemi
- Department of Psychology and Education of Exceptional Children, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran
| | - Golnoosh Golmohammadi
- Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Enayatollah Bakhshi
- Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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Delcenserie A, Genesee F, Trudeau N, Champoux F. The development of phonological memory and language: A multiple groups approach. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2021; 48:285-324. [PMID: 32524936 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000920000343] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Pierce et al. (2017) have proposed that variations in the timing, quality and quantity of language input during the earliest stages of development are related to variations in the development of phonological working memory and, in turn, to later language learning outcomes. To examine this hypothesis, three groups of children who are at-risk for language learning were examined: children with cochlear implants (CI), children with developmental language disorder (DLD), and internationally-adopted (IA) children, Comparison groups of typically-developing monolingual (MON) children and second language (L2) learners were also included. All groups were acquiring French as a first or second language and were matched on age, gender, and socioeconomic status, as well as other group-specific factors; they were between 5;0-7;3 years of age at time of testing. The CI and DLD groups scored significantly more poorly on the memory measures than the other groups; while the IA and L2 groups did not differ from one another. While the IA group performed more poorly than the MON group, there was no difference between the L2 and MON groups. We also found differential developmental relationships between phonological memory and language among the groups of interest in comparison to the typically-developing MON and L2 groups supporting the hypothesis that language experiences early in life are consequential for language development because of their effects on the development of phonological memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Audrey Delcenserie
- Université de Montréal, Department of Psychology, Canada
- Université de Montréal, École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Canada
| | - Fred Genesee
- McGill University, Department of Psychology, Canada
| | - Natacha Trudeau
- Université de Montréal, École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Canada
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Andreou M, Tsimpli IM, Masoura E, Agathopoulou E. Cognitive Mechanisms of Monolingual and Bilingual Children in Monoliterate Educational Settings: Evidence From Sentence Repetition. Front Psychol 2021; 11:613992. [PMID: 33551924 PMCID: PMC7855031 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.613992] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2020] [Accepted: 12/14/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been extensively employed to assess bilingual children’s linguistic and cognitive resources. The present study examined whether monoliterate bilingual children differ from their monolingual (and monoliterate) peers in SR accuracy and cognitive tasks, and investigated links between vocabulary, updating, verbal and visuospatial working memory and SR performance in the same children. Participants were two groups of 35 children, 8–12 years of age: one group consisted of Albanian-Greek monoliterate bilingual children and the other of Greek monolingual children attending a monolingual-Greek educational setting. The findings demonstrate that the two groups performed similarly in the grammaticality scores of the SR. However, monolinguals outperformed the monoliterate bilinguals in SR accuracy, as well as in the visuospatial working memory and updating tasks. The findings did not indicate any bilingual advantage in cognitive performance. The results also demonstrate that updating and visuospatial working memory significantly predicted monolingual children’s SR accuracy scores, whereas Greek vocabulary predicted the performance of our monoliterate bilingual children in the same task. We attribute this outcome to the fact that monoliterate bilingual children do not rely on their fluid cognitive resources to perform the task, but instead rely on language proficiency (indicated by expressive vocabulary) while performing the SR.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Andreou
- Department of Philology, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece.,Department of English, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - Ianthi Maria Tsimpli
- Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Elvira Masoura
- Department of Developmental and School Psychology, School of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Eleni Agathopoulou
- Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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Farabolini G, Rinaldi P, Caselli MC, Cristia A. Non-word repetition in bilingual children: the role of language exposure, vocabulary scores and environmental factors. SPEECH, LANGUAGE AND HEARING 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/2050571x.2021.1879609] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Gianmatteo Farabolini
- National Research Council, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Rome, Italy
- Départment d’études cognitives Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
| | - Pasquale Rinaldi
- National Research Council, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Rome, Italy
| | - Maria Cristina Caselli
- National Research Council, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Rome, Italy
| | - Alejandrina Cristia
- Départment d’études cognitives Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
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Ahufinger N, Berglund-Barraza A, Cruz-Santos A, Ferinu L, Andreu L, Sanz-Torrent M, Evans JL. Consistency of a Nonword Repetition Task to Discriminate Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder in Catalan-Spanish and European Portuguese Speaking Children. CHILDREN-BASEL 2021; 8:children8020085. [PMID: 33530420 PMCID: PMC7911802 DOI: 10.3390/children8020085] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2020] [Revised: 01/12/2021] [Accepted: 01/21/2021] [Indexed: 01/30/2023]
Abstract
Nonword repetition has been proposed as a diagnostic marker of developmental language disorder (DLD); however, the inconsistency in the ability of nonword repetition tasks (NRT) to identify children with DLD raises significant questions regarding its feasibility as a clinical tool. Research suggests that some of the inconsistency across NRT may be due to differences in the nature of the nonword stimuli. In this study, we compared children's performance on NRT between two cohorts: the children in the Catalan-Spanish cohort (CS) were bilingual, and the children in the European Portuguese cohort (EP) were monolingual. NRT performance was assessed in both Spanish and Catalan for the bilingual children from Catalonia-Spain and in Portuguese for the monolingual children from Portugal. Results show that although the absolute performance differed across the two cohorts, with NRT performance being lower for the CS, in both Catalan and Spanish, as compared to the EP cohort in both, the cut-points for the likelihood ratios (LH) were similar across the three languages and mirror those previously reported in previous studies. However, the absolute LH ratio values for this study were higher than those reported in prior research due in part to differences in wordlikeness and frequency of the stimuli in the current study. Taken together, the findings from this study show that an NRT consisting of 3-, 4-, and 5-syllable nonwords, which varies in wordlikeness ratings, when presented in a random order accurately identifies and correctly differentiates children with DLD from TD controls the child is bilingual or monolingual.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadia Ahufinger
- Estudis de Psicologia i Ciències de l’Educació, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 08018 Barcelona, Spain; (L.F.); (L.A.)
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +34-93-326-3473
| | - Amy Berglund-Barraza
- Department of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA; (A.B.-B.); (J.L.E.)
| | - Anabela Cruz-Santos
- Research Centre in Education, Institute of Education, University of Minho, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal;
| | - Laura Ferinu
- Estudis de Psicologia i Ciències de l’Educació, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 08018 Barcelona, Spain; (L.F.); (L.A.)
| | - Llorenç Andreu
- Estudis de Psicologia i Ciències de l’Educació, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 08018 Barcelona, Spain; (L.F.); (L.A.)
| | | | - Julia L. Evans
- Department of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA; (A.B.-B.); (J.L.E.)
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Identifying Bilingual Children at Risk for Language Impairment: The Implication of Children's Response Speed in Narrative Contexts. CHILDREN-BASEL 2021; 8:children8020062. [PMID: 33498365 PMCID: PMC7909409 DOI: 10.3390/children8020062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2020] [Revised: 01/15/2021] [Accepted: 01/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
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.
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Newbury J, Bartoszewicz Poole A, Theys C. Current practices of New Zealand speech-language pathologists working with multilingual children. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2020; 22:571-582. [PMID: 32054322 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2020.1712476] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Purpose: This study aimed to identify the current practices of New Zealand speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working with multilingual children, to compare these with best practice guidelines and make recommendations for training and service development.Method: An online survey was sent to SLPs working with children in New Zealand, asking questions about their training, languages spoken and management of multilingual children.Result: Responses from 146 SLPs were analysed. While 28% reported over 25% of children on their caseloads were multilingual, most SLPs felt under-trained to work with these clients. In accordance with best practice guidelines, SLPs supported retention of home languages for their multilingual children. Half of the children seen were assessed and treated in all languages, despite the majority of SLPs being monolingual English speakers. However contrary to best practice recommendations, parents were used as interpreters more frequently than professional interpreters. The SLPs reported a lack of resources for assessment and treatment of multilingual children. Informal assessments were frequently used, but dynamic assessment and peer-child comparisons were under-utilised.Conclusion: There were marked differences between SLPs' current practice with multilingual children and best practice guidelines. Increased training opportunities along with resource development in languages commonly spoken in New Zealand are required.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jayne Newbury
- School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
- New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and
| | | | - Catherine Theys
- School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
- New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and
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Jordaan H, Ngwanduli MH. Contextual influences on sentence repetition as a tool for the identification of language impairment in Grade 3 Sepedi-English bilinguals: A case against bilingual norms. SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2020; 67:e1-e8. [PMID: 32896134 PMCID: PMC7479431 DOI: 10.4102/sajcd.v67i1.762] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2020] [Revised: 06/03/2020] [Accepted: 06/20/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Specific language impairment (SLI) is difficult to identify because it is a subtle linguistic difficulty, and there are a few measures available to differentiate between typical and atypical language development in bilinguals. Sentence repetition (SR) has strong theoretical foundations and research evidence as a valid tool for the identification of SLI in bilinguals. OBJECTIVE This study assessed the value of SR using peer group comparisons to identify Sepedi-English bilingual children at the risk of SLI. METHOD One hundred and two Grade 3 learners in three different contexts of education were assessed on equivalent English and Sepedi SR measures. RESULTS Eleven participants who scored between 1 and 2 standard deviations (SD) below the peer group means on both the English and Sepedi SR tests were identified with possible SLI. Learners in the English language of learning and teaching (LoLT) - Sepedi additional language (SAL) context obtained similar scores in both languages, a higher score in English than the English LoLT group and a higher score in Sepedi than the Sepedi LoLT - EAL group. The English LoLT group obtained a significantly higher score in English than in Sepedi and a significantly lower score than the other two groups in Sepedi. The Sepedi LoLT group obtained a significantly higher score in Sepedi than in English, their additional language, in which they obtained a significantly lower score than the other two groups. CONCLUSION Sentence repetition tasks are valid screening tools to identify bilingual children with SLI by comparing them to peer groups. The SR tests were sensitive to language practices in different educational contexts. It was observed that a bilingual approach that uses both English and the home language as academic languages leads to better language outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heila Jordaan
- Speech Pathology and Audiology, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
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Bonifacci P, Atti E, Casamenti M, Piani B, Porrelli M, Mari R. Which Measures Better Discriminate Language Minority Bilingual Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder? A Study Testing a Combined Protocol of First and Second Language Assessment. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2020; 63:1898-1915. [PMID: 32516561 DOI: 10.1044/2020_jslhr-19-00100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Purpose This study aimed to assess a protocol for the evaluation of developmental language disorder (DLD) in language minority bilingual children (LMBC). The specific aims were (a) to test group differences, (b) to evaluate the discriminant validity of single measures included in the protocol, and (c) to define which model of combined variables had the best results in terms of efficacy and efficiency. Method Two groups of LMBC were involved, one with typical development (n = 35) selected from mainstream schools and one with DLD (n = 20). The study protocol included the collection of demographic information and linguistic history; a battery of standardized tests in their second language (Italian), including nonword repetition, morphosyntactic comprehension and production, and vocabulary and narrative skills; and direct (children's evaluation) and indirect (parents' questionnaire) assessment of linguistic skills in their first language. Results Results showed that the two groups differed in almost all linguistic measures. None of the single measures reached good specificity/sensitivity scores. A combined model that included direct and indirect assessment of first language skills, morphosyntactic comprehension and production, and nonword repetition reached good discriminant validity, with 94.5% of cases correctly classified. Discussion The study defines a complex picture of the linguistic profile in bilingual children with DLD, compared to typically developing bilingual peers. The results reinforce the idea that no single measure can be considered optimal in distinguishing children with DLD from typical peers. The study offers a concrete example of an effective and efficient protocol with which to discriminate LMBC with and without DLD.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Elena Atti
- Villa Esperia-Rehabilitation Institute, Pavia, Italy
| | | | - Barbara Piani
- Nursing and Technical Direction (DIT), AUSL Romagna, Faenza, Italy
| | | | - Rita Mari
- Studio Di Psicologia Clinica, Formazione, Linguaggio e Apprendimento Anna Valentini, Carpi, Italy
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Li'el N, Williams C, Kane R. Identifying developmental language disorder in bilingual children from diverse linguistic backgrounds. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2019; 21:613-622. [PMID: 30253708 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2018.1513073] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2017] [Revised: 06/12/2018] [Accepted: 08/13/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Purpose: To investigate an assessment approach that incorporates a parent questionnaire (ALDeQ) and two language processing tasks (nonword repetition [NWR] and recalling sentences [RS]) administered in English to differentiate bilingual children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) from typically developing (TD) bilingual children.Method: Participants were 42 typically developing bilingual children (biTD) and 19 bilingual children with DLD (biDLD). Groups were matched for age (M = 5;10) socioeconomic status (M = 1,023 SEIFA) and length of exposure to English (M = 33.4 months). Children were given a NWR and RS task. Parents completed the ALDeQ.Result: BiDLD had significantly (p < 0.005) lower average scores than biTD on all three assessment tools. The ALDeQ provided the highest diagnostic accuracy (100% sensitivity, 95.2% specificity, area under the curve [AUC] = 0.991). Two other combinations also provided good diagnostic accuracy (above 80% sensitivity and 80% specificity): combination of ALDeQ and NWR; scores below the cut-offline on any combination of assessment tools.Conclusion: Correct identification of DLD among bilingual children using an all English approach is possible. This approach has the potential to provide a practical and evidence-based solution for English speaking speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working with bilingual children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naomi Li'el
- School of Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Speech Pathology Curtin University, Perth, Australia
| | - Cori Williams
- School of Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Speech Pathology Curtin University, Perth, Australia
| | - Robert Kane
- School of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
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Ebert KD, Pham G. Including Nonlinguistic Processing Tasks in the Identification of Developmental Language Disorder. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2019; 28:932-944. [PMID: 31398301 PMCID: PMC6802919 DOI: 10.1044/2019_ajslp-idll-18-0208] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2018] [Revised: 02/18/2019] [Accepted: 04/02/2019] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Accurate identification of developmental language disorder (DLD) remains challenging, particularly for children who speak different dialects, languages, or more than 1 language. Children with DLD, on average, have shown subtle deficits on nonlinguistic cognitive processing tasks, and performance on such tasks may be minimally influenced by language experience. This study explores whether nonlinguistic cognitive processing tasks can contribute to the identification of DLD in children from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Method Study 1 combined data from 4 U.S.-based investigations to yield a sample of 395 children, ages 6-10 years, who spoke only English or both Spanish and English. Study 2 consisted of an international sample of 55 kindergarten children living in Vietnam. Each study included children with DLD and children with typical development. Participants completed nonlinguistic cognitive tasks of processing speed, auditory working memory, and attentional control. Data analysis compared typically developing to DLD groups by age and language background. Then, we empirically derived cut-points to report diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood ratios). Results For all 3 tasks, adequate sensitivity or specificity (but not both in most cases) was achieved in nearly all age groups. Likelihood ratios reached moderately to very informative levels in several instances. Diagnostic results were maintained when monolingual and bilingual samples were combined into a single group. Conclusions Nonlinguistic cognitive processing tasks may contribute to accurate identification of DLD in combination with other measures. Further research is needed to refine tasks, confirm cut-points established here, and extend findings to children from additional language backgrounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kerry Danahy Ebert
- Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences, Rush University, Chicago, IL
| | - Giang Pham
- School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University, CA
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Andersson K, Hansson K, Rosqvist I, Lyberg Åhlander V, Sahlén B, Sandgren O. The Contribution of Bilingualism, Parental Education, and School Characteristics to Performance on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals: Fourth Edition, Swedish. Front Psychol 2019; 10:1586. [PMID: 31379654 PMCID: PMC6652741 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01586] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2019] [Accepted: 06/24/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Assessment of bilingual children in only one language fails to acknowledge their distributed linguistic competence and has been shown to overidentify language disorder in bilingual populations. However, other factors, sometimes associated with bilingualism, may also contribute to low results in language assessments. Our aim was to examine the impact of these factors on language abilities. We used the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Fourth Edition, Swedish (CELF-4) to investigate core language abilities of 224 7- to 8-year-old children. Results showed 30 and 80% of monolinguals and bilinguals, respectively, performing more than 1 SD below the normative sample mean, calling into question the clinical utility of the test. However, participant and school characteristics provided a deeper understanding of the skewed results. In isolation, bilingualism predicted 38% of the variance in the CELF-4 Core scores. With level of parental education entered the variance explained by the model increased to 52%, but the unique contribution of bilingualism was reduced to 20%. Finally, with information added on school characteristics and enrollment in the school's recreation center the model explained an additional two percent, with the unique contribution of bilingualism further reduced to 9%. The results indicate an increased risk for low results on the CELF-4 Core when children present with multiple risk factors. This highlights the need to look beyond bilingualism in language assessment of bilingual children and adolescents and to consider other explanations to academic struggle. Available interventions must be considered and applied proportionately to their respective impact on the individual's development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ketty Andersson
- Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Logopedics, Phoniatrics, and Audiology, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Kristina Hansson
- Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Logopedics, Phoniatrics, and Audiology, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Ida Rosqvist
- Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Logopedics, Phoniatrics, and Audiology, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Viveka Lyberg Åhlander
- Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Logopedics, Phoniatrics, and Audiology, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Birgitta Sahlén
- Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Logopedics, Phoniatrics, and Audiology, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Olof Sandgren
- Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Logopedics, Phoniatrics, and Audiology, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.,Department of School Development and Leadership, Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden
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Antonijevic-Elliott S, Lyons R, O' Malley MP, Meir N, Haman E, Banasik N, Carroll C, McMenamin R, Rodden M, Fitzmaurice Y. Language assessment of monolingual and multilingual children using non-word and sentence repetition tasks. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2019; 34:293-311. [PMID: 31291748 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2019.1637458] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2019] [Revised: 06/16/2019] [Accepted: 06/25/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
The number of children speaking more than one language as well as the number of languages spoken in Ireland has increased significantly posing a problem for timely identification of children with language disorder. The current study aims to profile performance of monolingual and multilingual children on language processing tasks: non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR). We used: (1) Crosslinguistic (CL) and English Language-Specific (LS) NWR and (2) SR in English, Polish and Russian. Children's socioeconomic status, language emergence, the age of exposure (AoE) to English and the percentage of English spoken at home were recorded. The study included 88 children age 5-8 attending a school in a disadvantaged area.CL and LS NWR yielded similar distribution of scores for monolinguals and multilinguals. The tasks identified small number of children who performed significantly lower than the mean while there were no significant differences between the groups. In English SR, monolinguals significantly outperformed multilinguals. Comparison of SR in English and Polish/Russian indicated that some children showed balanced performance in both of their languages while others showed marked differences performing better in either Polish/Russian or English depending on their AoE to English and percentage of English spoken at home.The pilot study suggests that CL-NWR is a promising screening tool for identifying monolingual and multilingual children with language disorder while SR provides more detailed information on children's language performance relative to their language exposure. SR task is recommended to be used only if comparable tasks are available in all of children's languages.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Rena Lyons
- Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
| | - Mary Pat O' Malley
- Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
| | - Natalia Meir
- Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Ewa Haman
- Psycholinguistics Lab, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Natalia Banasik
- Institute for Psychology, Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Clare Carroll
- Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
| | - Ruth McMenamin
- Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
| | - Margaret Rodden
- Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
| | - Yvonne Fitzmaurice
- Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
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Abstract
Nonword repetition (NWR) has been a widely used measure of language-learning ability in children with and without language disorders. Although NWR tasks have been created for a variety of languages, minimal attention has been given to Asian tonal languages. This study introduces a new set of NWR stimuli for Vietnamese. The stimuli include 20 items ranging in length from one to four syllables. The items consist of dialect-neutral phonemes in consonant-vowel (CV) and CVC sequences that follow the phonotactic constraints of the language. They were rated high on wordlikeness and have comparable position segments and biphone probabilities across stimulus lengths. We validated the stimuli with a sample of 59 typically developing Vietnamese-English bilingual children, ages 5 to 8. The stimuli exhibited the expected age and length effects commonly found in NWR tasks: Older children performed better on the task than younger children, and longer items were more difficult to repeat than shorter items. We also compared different scoring systems in order to examine the individual phoneme types (consonants, vowels, and tones) and composite scores (proportions of phonemes correct, with and without tone). The study demonstrates careful construction and validation of the stimuli, and future directions are discussed.
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Scharff Rethfeldt W. Speech and Language Therapy Services for Multilingual Children with Migration Background: A Cross-Sectional Survey in Germany. Folia Phoniatr Logop 2019; 71:116-126. [PMID: 31085930 DOI: 10.1159/000495565] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2018] [Accepted: 11/18/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Speech, language, and communication needs are particularly common among multilingual and migrant children. More than every third child in Germany has a migrant background. In the city of Bremen, this figure is even higher, including refugee children. The availability of comprehensive data on the provision and uptake of speech and language therapy (SLT) services is still inadequate, especially for multilingual children. However, health-monitoring programs report that migrants differ in many health-related areas from the majority population, mainly in barriers in health care. This study examines the current provision of SLT services for multilingual children following a medical prescription for the specific case of suspected language disorder. Information was obtained from speech-language pathologists (SLPs) representing 28 practices in different districts across one of the moderately largest cities affected by sociospatial polarization. The SLT practices were clustered according to the proportion of minor migrants and minor welfare recipients in the district. The survey included the number and proportion of multilingual children on the SLT caseloads, as well as the age of children by time of referral, physician and SLP diagnoses, application and type of assessment materials, intervention goals, and sociodemographic data of practicing SLPs. Questionnaire responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and an explanatory interpretive approach. Findings suggest that multilingual children experience later referral compared to monolingual German-speaking children, with approximately half of the multilingual children demonstrating a developmental language disorder (DLD). The SLP's level of experience determines the accuracy of differential diagnosis between communication disorders and typical linguistic variations. Consequently, participation in continuing education focusing on service provision of the multilingual and multicultural clientele is essential. This study highlights the obstacles and the needs for increased multiprofessional awareness and an enhanced professional knowledge to provide effective and swift diagnosis earlier to allow multilingual children with a DLD to access relevant services on equal terms with native resident children.
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Elin Thordardottir, Rioux EJ. Does Efficacy Equal Lasting Impact? A Study of Intervention Short Term Gains, Impact on Diagnostic Status, and Association with Background Variables. Folia Phoniatr Logop 2019; 71:71-82. [PMID: 31085927 DOI: 10.1159/000493125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2018] [Accepted: 08/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE This article examines the efficacy of language intervention services for monolingual and immigrant children in a public clinic in Montreal, Canada. Intervention is provided in French for a preset number of sessions regardless of intervention needs. The study assessed immediate gains after intervention, their maintenance over 2 months, and their effect on diagnostic status at both time points. METHODS Participants included 15 children (57.7 months SD 7.8) diagnosed with developmental language disorder: 3 monolinguals and 12 bilingual immigrants. Intervention targeted vocabulary and syntax. Assessment of intervention targets and standardized testing was conducted before, after, and 2 months after treatment. Diagnostic status and severity level were assessed at each time point. RESULTS Intervention was highly efficacious with large effect sizes for intervention targets. However, for diagnostic status, efficacy was more questionable. Seven children improved their diagnostic status from pre- to posttest; but many dropped back at maintenance point. For 3 children, all test time showed scores within the non-impaired range, indicating misdiagnosis or change in status while waiting for treatment. Amount of pain was not correlated with any background variable. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that intervention could be more efficacious by giving more therapy sessions and conducting evaluation and treatment closer in time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elin Thordardottir
- McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada, .,Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Réadaptation du Montréal Métropolitain (CRIR), Montreal, Québec, Canada,
| | - Eve Julie Rioux
- Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Réadaptation du Montréal Métropolitain (CRIR), Montreal, Québec, Canada.,CIUSSS Centre-Sud-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Montreal, Québec, Canada
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Kehoe M, Havy M. Bilingual phonological acquisition: the influence of language-internal, language-external, and lexical factors. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2019; 46:292-333. [PMID: 30560762 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000918000478] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
This study examines the influence of language-internal (frequency and complexity of linguistic properties), language-external (percent French input, socioeconomic status (SES), and gender), and lexical factors (size of total and French vocabulary) on the phonological production abilities of monolingual and bilingual French-speaking children, aged 2;6. Children participated in an object and picture naming task in which they produced words selected to test different phonological properties. The bilinguals' first languages were coded in terms of the frequency and complexity of these phonological properties. Results indicated that bilinguals who spoke languages characterized by high frequency/complexity of codas and clusters had superior results in their coda and cluster accuracy in comparison to monolinguals. Bilinguals also had better coda and cluster accuracy scores than monolinguals. These findings provide evidence for cross-linguistic interaction in combination with a 'general bilingual effect'. In addition, percent French exposure, SES, total vocabulary, and gender influenced phonological production.
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Abed Ibrahim L, Fekete I. What Machine Learning Can Tell Us About the Role of Language Dominance in the Diagnostic Accuracy of German LITMUS Non-word and Sentence Repetition Tasks. Front Psychol 2019; 9:2757. [PMID: 30761060 PMCID: PMC6363680 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02757] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2018] [Accepted: 12/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study investigates the performance of 21 monolingual and 56 bilingual children aged 5;6-9;0 on German LITMUS-sentence-repetition (SRT; Hamann et al., 2013) and non-word-repetition-tasks (NWRT; Grimm et al., 2014), which were constructed in accordance with the LITMUS-principles (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings; Armon-Lotem et al., 2015). Both tasks incorporate phonologically and syntactically complex structures shown to be cross-linguistically challenging for children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and aim at minimizing bias against bilingual children while still being indicative of the presence of language impairment across language combinations (see Marinis and Armon-Lotem, 2015; for sentence-repetition; Chiat, 2015 for non-word-repetition). Given the great variability in bilingual language exposure and the potential effect of language experience on language performance in bilingual children, we examined whether background variables related to bilingualism, particularly, the degree language dominance as measured by relative amount of use and exposure, could compromise the diagnostic accuracy of the German LITMUS-SRT and NWRT. We further investigated whether a combination of the two tasks provides better diagnostic accuracy and helps avoid cases of misdiagnosis. To address this, we used an unsupervised machine learning algorithm, the Partitioning-Around-Medoids (PAM, Kaufman and Rousseeuw, 2009), for deriving a clinical category for the children as ± language-impaired based on their performance scores on SRT and NWRT (in isolation and combined) while withholding information about their clinical status based on standardized assessment in their first (home language, L1) and second language (societal language, L2). Subsequently, we calculated diagnostic accuracy and used regression analysis to investigate which background variables (age of onset, length of exposure, degree of language dominance, socio-economic-status, and risk factors for SLI) best explained clinical-group-membership yielded from the PAM-analysis based on the children's NWRT and SRT performance scores. Results show that although language-dominance clearly influences the performance of bilingual typically developing children, especially in the SRT, the diagnostic accuracy of the tools is not compromised by language dominance: while risk factors for SLI were significant predictors for clinical group membership in all models, language dominance did not contribute at all to explaining clinical cluster membership as typically developing or SLI based on any of the combinations of the SRT and NWRT variables. Additionally, results confirm that a combination of SRT scored by correct target structure and the structurally more complex language-dependent part of the NWRT yields better diagnostic accuracy than single measures and is only sensitive to risk factors for SLI and not to dominance levels or SES.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - István Fekete
- Department of Dutch, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
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Delcenserie A, Genesee F, Trudeau N, Champoux F. A multi-group approach to examining language development in at-risk learners. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2019; 46:51-79. [PMID: 30221620 DOI: 10.1017/s030500091800034x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
A battery of standardized language tests and control measures was administered to three groups of at-risk language learners - internationally adopted children, deaf children with cochlear implants, and children with specific language impairment - and to groups of second-language learners and typically developing monolingual children. All children were acquiring French, were matched on age, gender, and socioeconomic status, and were between age 5;0 and 7;3 at the time of testing. Differences between the at-risk and not-at-risk groups were evident in all domains of language testing. The children with SLI or CIs scored significantly lower than the IA children and all three at-risk groups scored lower than the monolingual group; the L2 and IA groups scored similarly. The results suggest that children with limited access to, or ability to process, early language input are at greater risk than children with delayed input to an additional language but otherwise typical or relatively typical early input.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - F Genesee
- McGill University,Department of Psychology
| | - N Trudeau
- Université de Montréal,École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie
| | - F Champoux
- Université de Montréal,École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie
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Eisenwort B, Felnhofer A, Klier C. Mehrsprachiges Aufwachsen und Sprachentwicklungsstörungen. Eine Übersichtsarbeit. ZEITSCHRIFT FUR KINDER-UND JUGENDPSYCHIATRIE UND PSYCHOTHERAPIE 2018; 46:488-496. [DOI: 10.1024/1422-4917/a000599] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Zusammenfassung. Für viele Kinder mit Migrationshintergrund ist das Erlernen der Zweitsprache im Aufnahmeland eine bedeutende Hürde für den Bildungserfolg. Durch die Vielzahl der Sprachen, die noch nicht detailliert linguistisch beschrieben sind, ist die Entwicklung von entsprechenden validen und reliablen Diagnoseinstrumenten und Screeningverfahren äußerst erschwert. Daraus entsteht ein diagnostisches Dilemma, da Kinder mit Erwerbsproblemen der Zweitsprache mit sprachentwicklungsgestörten Kindern (engl. Specific language impairment [SLI]) verwechselt werden können. Kinder mit Migrationshintergrund können linguistische Profile aufweisen, die oberflächlich an Kinder mit Sprachentwicklungsstörung erinnern. Der vorliegende Übersichtsartikel stellt ein selektives Review der relevanten Literatur dar und bietet Vorschläge für den Umgang mit den entsprechenden Herausforderungen. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass die Prävalenz für die Sprachentwicklungsstörung bei mehrsprachig aufwachsenden Kindern nicht höher ist als bei einsprachig aufwachsenden Kindern und mehrsprachig aufwachsende Kinder ebenfalls subtile kognitive Schwächen zeigen können. Die Bedeutung von Sprachentwicklungsstörungen bei psychiatrisch erkrankten einsprachig und mehrsprachig aufwachsenden Kindern ist hinreichend belegt und muss bei der umfassenden Diagnostik mitbedacht werden. Eine essenzielle Maßnahme für jene Kinder mit Migrationshintergrund, die größere Probleme beim Erwerb der Zweitsprache haben, ist eine Sprachdiagnostik in der jeweiligen Muttersprache.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brigitte Eisenwort
- Universitätsklinik für Kinder- und Jugendheilkunde, Medizinische Universität, Wien
| | - Anna Felnhofer
- Universitätsklinik für Kinder- und Jugendheilkunde, Medizinische Universität, Wien
| | - Claudia Klier
- Universitätsklinik für Kinder- und Jugendheilkunde, Medizinische Universität, Wien
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Scherger AL. German dative case marking in monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children with and without SLI. JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2018; 75:87-101. [PMID: 30031237 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2018.06.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2017] [Revised: 06/05/2018] [Accepted: 06/15/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
This study explores the role of German dative case marking in disentangling effects of specific language impairment (SLI) and bilingualism. Longitudinal data of German-Italian bilingual children with SLI (N = 3) is compared to cross-sectional data (N = 42) of monolingual and bilingual typically developing (TD) children and monolingual children with SLI (ages four and seven). Spontaneous and elicited speech data is analysed in terms of target-like dative case marking in German. Results show differences between the acquisition of case marking of pronouns and of full Determiner Phrases (DPs). Regarding the target-like dative case marking in total, there were no differences found between bilingual TD, monolingual and bilingual children with SLI by the age of four. They demonstrated a similar delay when compared to monolingual TD children. By the age of seven, however, bilingual TD children 'catch up' with their monolingual peers. Children with SLI do not master the acquisition of dative case marking by this age. Cumulative effects of bilingualism and SLI were not found neither in younger nor in older bilingual children. These findings underline the importance of further research on linguistic markers and of distinguishing between effects of SLI and bilingualism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna-Lena Scherger
- Universität Hildesheim, Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur, Universitätsplatz 1, 31141 Hildesheim, Germany.
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