English Language Learners' Nonword Repetition Performance: The Influence of Age, L2 Vocabulary Size, Length of L2 Exposure, and L1 Phonology

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

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.

Heritage language learners of English: Linguistic gaps and cognitive strengths

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.

Difficulties in decoupling articulatory gestures in L2 phonemic sequences: the case of Mandarin listeners' perceptual deletion of English post-vocalic laterals

Nonnative or second language (L2) perception of segmental sequences is often characterised by perceptual modification processes, which may "repair" a nonnative sequence that is phonotactically illegal in the listeners' native language (L1) by transforming the sequence into a sequence that is phonotactically legal in the L1. Often repairs involve the insertion of phonetic materials (epenthesis), but we focus, here, on the less-studied phenomenon of perceptual deletion of nonnative phonemes by testing L1 Mandarin listeners' perception of post-vocalic laterals in L2 English using the triangulating methods of a cross-language goodness rating task, an AXB task, and an AX task. The data were analysed in the framework of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM/PAM-L2), and we further investigated the role of L2 vocabulary size on task performance. The experiments indicate that perceptual deletion occurs when the post-vocalic lateral overlaps with the nucleus vowel in terms of tongue backness specification. In addition, Mandarin listeners' discrimination performance in some contexts was significantly correlated with their English vocabulary size, indicating that continuous growth of vocabulary knowledge can drive perceptual learning of novel L2 segmental sequences and phonotactic structures.

Internal and external factors contributing to variability in consonant accuracy of Arabic-French simultaneous bilingual children

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.

Variation in quality of maternal input and development of coda stops in English-speaking children in Singapore

This study examines the effects of input quality on early phonological acquisition by investigating whether interadult variation in specific phonetic properties in the input is reflected in the production of their children. We analysed the English coda stop release patterns in the spontaneous speech of fourteen mothers and compared them with the spontaneous production of their preschool children. The analysis revealed a very strong positive input-production relationship; mothers who released coda stops to a lesser degree also had children who tended to not release their stops, and the same was true for mothers who released their stops to a higher degree. The findings suggest that young children are sensitive to acoustic properties that are subphonemic, and these properties are also reflected in their production, showing the importance of considering input quality when investigating child production.

Past-tense inflection of non-verbs: a potential clinical marker of developmental language disorder in Swedish children

AIM

In this paper, we explore the performance of past-tense inflection of non-verbs (NVI) in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and in typically developing controls, to investigate its accuracy as a clinical marker for Swedish-speaking children with DLD. Further, we investigate the relationship between NVI, nonword-repetition, and family history.

METHODS

The sample consists of 36 children with DLD (mean age 9;5 years) and 60 controls (mean age 9;2 years).

RESULTS

The DLD group performed significantly lower than the controls on the NVI task, with a large effect size of the difference (d = 1.52). Analysis of the clinical accuracy of NVI resulted in 80.6% sensitivity and 76.6% specificity. NVI was significantly and moderately associated with nonword-repetition in the controls, but not in the DLD group. A positive family history, 80.6% in the DLD group and 6.9% in the controls, was associated with lower performance on NVI. When controlling for group (DLD and controls), a non-significant association between family history and performance on the NVI task was found.

CONCLUSIONS

NVI is a potential clinical marker of DLD in Swedish school-aged children, but the current NVI task does not reach the level of being acceptable. Further development of the NVI task is warranted to improve its accuracy.

What factors influence phonological production in French-speaking bilingual children, aged three to six years?

This study examines the influence of bilingual status, language-internal (complexity of L1 phonology), language-external (dominance), and lexical (L2 vocabulary score) factors on phonological production in French-speaking monolingual (n = 37) and bilingual children (n = 64) aged three to six years. Children participated in an object and picture naming task which tested different phonological features. The bilinguals' first languages were coded in terms of the complexity of these phonological features. In addition, the parents completed a questionnaire on their child's language dominance and the children were administered a vocabulary test in their L2. Results indicated that vocabulary was the principal predictor of phonological accuracy across both age groups. Apparent monolingual-bilingual differences and dominance effects could largely be explained by vocabulary scores: children who scored better on a vocabulary test obtained superior phonological accuracy. Language-internal effects were minimal and marginally influenced vowel accuracy only.

Identifying developmental language disorder in bilingual children from diverse linguistic backgrounds

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.

Nonword repetition stimuli for Vietnamese-speaking children

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.

Bilingual phonological acquisition: the influence of language-internal, language-external, and lexical factors

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.

A Framework for Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Tests: Effects of Bilingualism and Socioeconomic Status on Children's Performance

PURPOSE

As a recognized indicator of language impairment, nonword repetition has unique potential for distinguishing language impairment from difficulties due to limited experience and knowledge of a language. This study focused on a new Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition framework, comprising 3 tests that vary the phonological characteristics of nonwords, in the quest for an assessment that minimizes effects of language experience and knowledge and thereby maximizes potential for assessing children with diverse linguistic experience.

METHOD

The English version of the new framework was administered, with a test of receptive vocabulary, to 4- to 7-year-old monolingual and bilingual children with typical development (n = 21 per group) from neighborhoods with midhigh and low socioeconomic status (SES).

RESULTS

Receptive vocabulary was affected by both bilingualism and neighborhood SES. In contrast, no effects of bilingualism or neighborhood SES were found on 2 of our nonword repetition tests, whereas the most language-specific test yielded a borderline effect of neighborhood SES but no effect of bilingualism.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings support the potential of the new tests for assessing children regardless of lingual or socioeconomic background. They also highlight the importance of considering the characteristics of nonword targets and investigating the compound influence of bilingualism and SES on different language assessments.

The Development of English as a Second Language With and Without Specific Language Impairment: Clinical Implications

PURPOSE

The purpose of this research forum article is to provide an overview of typical and atypical development of English as a second language (L2) and to present strategies for clinical assessment with English language learners (ELLs).

METHOD

A review of studies examining the lexical, morphological, narrative, and verbal memory abilities of ELLs is organized around 3 topics: timeframe and characteristics of typical English L2 development, comparison of the English L2 development of children with and without specific language impairment (SLI), and strategies for more effective assessment with ELLs.

RESULTS

ELLs take longer than 3 years to converge on monolingual norms and approach monolingual norms asynchronously across linguistic subdomains. Individual variation is predicted by age, first language, language learning aptitude, length of exposure to English in school, maternal education, and richness of the English environment outside school. ELLs with SLI acquire English more slowly than ELLs with typical development; their morphological and nonword repetition abilities differentiate them the most. Use of strategies such as parent questionnaires on first language development and ELL norm referencing can result in accurate discrimination of ELLs with SLI.

CONCLUSIONS

Variability in the language abilities of ELLs presents challenges for clinical practice. Increased knowledge of English language learning development with and without SLI together with evidence-based alternative assessment strategies can assist in overcoming these challenges.