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

Abstract

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

A Preliminary Content Validity Analysis of the Receptive and Expressive Language Pre-Referral Protocol for Bilingual Learners (RELPP-BL)

“…In their comprehensive review, Pratt et al (2020) examined available questionnaires used to screen for language disorders in bilingual learners. Their review included a variety of tools: Ages and Stages Questionnaire-Spanish ([Spanish ASQ], Squires et al 1999) Pua et al 2017).…”

“…The Spanish ASQ, INV-II, ALDeQ, and PRSLP engage parents as reporters of children's information, whereas the BLAB utilizes both parents and educators. Overall, Pratt et al (2020) concluded that these instruments lacked the sensitivity required to identify bilingual learners with language disorders. If an instrument cannot clearly measure the constructs or identify a language disorder, then the validity is in question as it does not serve the intended purpose and, thus, impacts accurate assessment.…”

“…The ITALK is a parent and educator questionnaire, with the interview being conducted in English or Spanish by the SLP (Peña et al 2014(Peña et al , 2018. Parents and educators are asked about the use of the bilingual child's language proficiency for each of the five language domains: language comprehension, grammar, phonology, sentence production, and vocabulary (Pratt et al 2020). In Pratt et al's (2020) study, they observed the importance of gathering data from multiple sources, such as parents and educators, that can be used as part of the SLP's assessment and decision-making process.…”

“…Parents and educators are asked about the use of the bilingual child's language proficiency for each of the five language domains: language comprehension, grammar, phonology, sentence production, and vocabulary (Pratt et al 2020). In Pratt et al's (2020) study, they observed the importance of gathering data from multiple sources, such as parents and educators, that can be used as part of the SLP's assessment and decision-making process. In addition to the BESA, sources of evidence can include questionnaires, bilingual language and speech samples, learning potential evaluation (dynamic assessment and RTI), and standardized testing (Castilla-Earls et al 2020).…”

“…The RELPP-BL is a comprehensive pre-referral tool that a bilingual educator can use to document detailed information about a bilingual learner's language skills. As aforementioned, the tool consists of six subscales based on the constructs identified in the literature (Castilla et al 2009;Castilla-Earls et al 2020;Pratt et al 2020). It is vital to use converging evidence when gathering information about bilingual learners so that appropriate and objective pre-referral decisions can be made (Castilla-Earls et al 2020).…”