Semantic Associations in Bilingual Children with Language Impairment

I got into research in part because I was curious in lexical organization in bilinguals and in bilingual language impairment. Sometimes I feel like I’ve gotten distracted doing other kinds of work. So, it’s kinda fun to get back to something that I feel has gotten neglected.

How do children learn and organize their vocabulary? As children learn new words, they have to compare them with the words they already know. Words might sound the same but have different meanings (e.g., hoarse vs. horse). They also can compare words by category (e.g., chair, sofa) and function (e.g., cup, drink). These comparisons help children to make associations among words, and this helps children build their vocabulary knowledge. For bilinguals, it’s not so different, but the comparisons are made within languages and across languages. Across languages, children need to make connections among words that sound the same and have the same (e.g., velocity, velocidad) and different (e.g., contest, contestar (answer)) meanings. Bilinguals need to associate translation equivalents (e.g., dog, perro). And they need to keep word classes (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives) straight within each language.

Bilingualism does NOT increase risk for language impairment

I’ve been saying this for years. My colleague Mary Anne Nericcio says she’s been saying this for 30 years– I guess I’ve been saying it for about that long too! As part of our Diagnostic Markers of Language Impairment in Bilingual Children project, funded by the NIH (NIDCD) we screened some 1200 children who spanned the range from monolingual Spanish speakers to monolingual English speakers and looked to see whether children in the middle (bilinguals) were more likely to fall in the risk range more often than monolinguals. They don’t.

English Language Acquisition and Special Education

The Spring 2011 report of the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition is dedicated to the question of how to work with ELLs who have special needs. And yes, we have an article in this issue, but ours certainly isn’t the only one. 

Making Clinical Decisions About Young Bilingual Children

I’m often asked my opinion whether or not young bilingual children have language delays or impairment. How can we tell impairment and normal bilingualism apart. And what about language use for these kids? Should parents use more than one language– especially if they have language delays or language impairment?

Can it be too late?

Usually, my applied work focuses on limiting OVER-identification (false positives) of language impairment in children who speak English as a second language. But, there’s another side to this too and that’s UNDER-identification of language impairment in this same population. I see these patterns in some of the national schools data. From year to year sometimes it looks like preschool English language learners (ELLs) are less likely than average to be identified with language impairment while school-age ELL children are more likely to be diagnosed with language impairment.

Bilingual Education Can Benefit All Students

This is the title of Alexandra Sabater’s post in the Dallas news opinion blog.  She writes eloquently about the benefits of bilingual education from her perspective as a teacher. It got me thinking about beliefs about bilingual education for children who have language impairment.

Testing ESL Children: What we can do now

One of the challenges in assessment of bilingual children is deciding whether or not they have language impairment. On one hand SLPs might decide to wait for children to learn more English before they assess them. On the other hand it’s important to identify children who have language impairment early so that we can intervene.

As of yet there are no standardized tests for bilingual children. There are some standardized tests for children who speak other languages. But, often these tests are inappropriate because they do not apply to children who speak two languages. There are some folks working on development of such tests for Spanish-English speakers (including me), these are few and don’t apply to all language pairs or all ages. At least not yet. So, what can we do NOW for the kids who are referred for assessment of language ability? What do we do to make decisions about language ability in the absence of standardized tests or even in the absence of personnel who speak the child’s language?

It’s the Wrong Question (Initially): Part 1

In a recent class on assessment and treatment of diverse populations, we were discussing treating communication disorders in bilingual children by speech-language pathologists.  In preparation for this discussion, the students had read papers such as:

Kohnert, K., Yim, D., Nett, K., Kan P.F., Duran, L. (2005). Intervention with linguistically diverse preschool children: A focus on developing home language(s). Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 36, 251-263.

Gutiérrez-Clellen, V. (1999). Language choice in intervention with bilingual children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 8, 291-302.

Goldstein, B. (2006).  Clinical implications of research on language development and disorders in bilingual children.  Topics in Language Disorders, 26, 318-334.

I opened the discussion with an open-ended question, “what is the first question you need to ask yourself in planning treatment for bilingual children with communication disorders?”  Each and every student said something like, “What language should I treat in?”  We then discussed how to make that decision.  They raised a number of factors that would be important to know in making that decision such as: home language, parental choice, use, proficiency, dominance, school language, language of the speech-language pathologist, and availability of interpreters/translators.  In discussing this topic for almost an hour, we could not agree on exactly how to answer this question.  I then told them the truth.  There was a reason they couldn’t truly answer the question. 

It’s the wrong question (initially).  Said another way, it’s the right question but at the wrong time. 

I then asked them if the child were monolingual, what would be their first question.  They all said, “What’s the goal?”  Then why, I asked, is that not the same question for bilinguals?  Silence.

Language of intervention is, of course, an important and critical question to answer in working with bilingual children, but I don’t think it’s the first one.  Determining the goal drives the language.  Language of intervention does not signal the goal.

In a future post, I will provide more detail on this notion and give you an example.

Bridging Home and School

Bilingual children in the US grow up under many different circumstances. Many bilingual children are early sequential bilinguals who use one language at home and English at school. Some are simultaneous bilinguals who grow up using both languages.