Cross-Language Nonword Repetition by Bilingual and Monolingual Children

Abstract

Purpose Identifying children with primary or specific language impairment (LI) in languages other than English continues to present a diagnostic challenge. This study examined the utility of English and Spanish nonword repetition (NWR) to identify children known to have LI. Method Participants were 4 groups of school-age children (N = 187). There were 2 typically developing groups: proficient Spanish-English sequential bilinguals and monolingual English speakers. There were 2 groups of children with LI, one Spanish-English and the other monolingual English speakers. Children participated in both English and Spanish NWR. Results Children’s NWR performance was significantly correlated across languages. In English NWR, the 2 groups with LI had lower accuracy at the longest syllable length than the 2 typically developing groups. In Spanish NWR, monolingual children with LI had lower repetition accuracy than bilingual children with LI and typical monolingual children, with all 3 groups outperformed by the typical bilingual group. Likelihood ratios indicated adequate diagnostic power only for English NWR in ruling out the typical bilingual children as showing LI. Conclusion The results demonstrate that NWR performance relies on the dual influences of LI and native language experience. However, it remains possible that NWR is useful in a composite marker for LI.

Reading skills in young adolescents with a history of Specific Language Impairment: The role of early semantic capacity

“…Previous studies have observed poorer oral language capacities in bilingual compared to monolingual children with SLI (Orgassa and Weerman, 2008;Westman, Korkman, Mickos, & Byring, 2008). However, other studies have failed to observe differences between the oral abilities of bilingual and monolingual children with SLI (Rothweiler, Chilla, & Clahsen, 2012;Windsor, Kohnert, Lobitz, & Pham, 2010) so evidence regarding this possibility is still inconclusive. Unfortunately, our study does not allow us to ascertain whether the increased percentage of reading deficit in our sample is due to bilingualism.…”

Language Exposure in Bilingual Toddlers: Performance on Nonword Repetition and Lexical Tasks

“…Moreover, the participants scored consistently high from the first time point (mean phonemes correct: 96%, SD = 2.8), even when their score on a standardized test of Icelandic was significantly below average. The conclusion was that NWR can be used even at beginning levels of L2 learning, a finding at odds with Windsor et al (2010) in that no disadvantage of bilingualism on NWR scores was evidenced, and it appears that the required level of language knowledge can be very low.…”

“…Elin Thordardottir and Brandeker (2013) confirmed this for both monolingual and bilingual children with PLI but showed that typically developing bilingual children were not disproportionately affected by nonword length. Other studies that have examined nonword length effects in bilingual children include Ebert, Kalanek, Cordero, and Kohnert (2008) and Windsor et al (2010). Ebert et al (2008) developed an NWR task in Spanish and assessed bilingual Spanish-English preschoolers.…”

“…Although NWR has been examined thoroughly in monolingual populations, both in children with typical and atypical language development, in English (e.g., see Graf Estes, Evans, & Else-Quest, 2007) and a range of other languages such as Dutch (Rispens & Baker, 2012), Quebec French (Elin Thordardottir, Kehayia, Lessard, Sutton, & Trudeau, 2010), Swedish (Reuterskiöld-Wagner, Sahlén, & Nyman, 2005), Italian (Dispaldro, Leonard, & Deevy, 2013), and Icelandic (Elin Thordardottir, 2008), 1research on bilingual NWR performance is comparatively recent, and findings of the relationship between NWR and language exposure have been mixed. Windsor, Kohnert, Lobitz, and Pham (2010) explored NWR performance and language levels in school-aged monolingual and bilingual children with and without language impairment (N = 187). All children completed NWR in both English and Spanish, even if they lacked knowledge or experience of the language.…”

Speech and Language Therapy Services for Multilingual Children with Migration Background: A Cross-Sectional Survey in Germany

“…So far, data on the incidence and prevalence of language disorders in the German population are missing. International epidemiological surveys converge in estimating the total population prevalence of language disorders at 9.92% [10] and the prevalence of DLD to be around 7% [11, 12]. However, as current prevalence estimates are based upon the general population in the UK and the USA, these findings must be regarded with caution, given the lack of reliable data on incidence and prevalence of language disorders in the culturally diverse population in Germany.…”