One Language One Clinician?

When I spoke at the FLASH seminar at UT Dallas in January, Anne van Kleeck asked if it mattered whether clinicians let bilingual children know they were bilingual. I’m not really sure what the answer is, and it’s one of those questions that I continued to think about after I got back to Austin.

What language should I start in?

A question that comes up frequently among bilingual speech-language pathologists who are testing children in two languages is what language to start testing in. There aren’t really clear guidelines. Some people advocate starting in the child’s home language; others suggest starting in the child’s stronger language; still others say that SLPs should follow the child’s lead and start in the language the child feels most comfortable in. We’ve tested many many kids over the last few years in English and Spanish. Sometimes we start in English other times we start in Spanish, and we do this regardless of what the child’s better or home language is. The reason we do this is so that we aren’t favoring one language over the other. For research purposes this makes sense because we’re interested in group data and we really don’t know what each child’s best language is. But, for clinical testing we are interested in individual performance and we want to get the best performance from kids as possible– if not the best performance at least information that is representative of their capabilities. And it’s for this reason that the question comes up. Maybe it does matter what language we start in.

Bilingual Test Development

Before, I wrote about different purposes for test development. Given those different test functions an implication is that the way we then develop tests for these should be different.

Is the Grass Greener??

The workshop on assessment of bilinguals in Gregynog was really interesting. There were researchers, students, and practitioners representing several disciplines including: speech-language pathology, psychology, linguistics, and reading. They were from different countries including: England, Wales, United States, Spain, Ireland, Netherlands, Greece among others. Many of these counties have official bilingual language policies (e.g., the Basque Country of Spain and Wales). One of the things that really struck me was that the challenges involved in assessment of bilinguals are very similar to what we face in the U.S. Somehow, I’d always assumed that the Europeans had it all figured out, especially since bilingualism is much more common than it is in the U.S.

So, where’s the GOLD?

Recently, I posted in my lab blog (or is it on my lab blog? I don’t know) about the challenges in developing a test for bilingual children. In collaboration with Aquiles Iglesias, Vera Gutierrez-Clellen, Brian Goldstein, and Lisa Bedore, I worked on development of the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment (BESA)– a test for Spanish-English bilinguals designed for identification of language impairment. The challenge that we faced when we began this 7 year project (in 1998) is that there was very little data on markers of language impairment in other languages. In fact some of this information had just begun to emerge for language impairment in English speakers.

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?

Analyzing Phonological Skills in Bilinguals: It’s a Buffet, Not a 7-Course Meal

I’ve often maintained that eliciting speech samples for phonological analysis (whether single or word or connected speech) does not take that much longer for bilinguals than it does for monolinguals (it is somewhat longer, for sure).  What does take longer, however, are the analyses of those samples.  Given that there are almost no standardized assessments for phonological skills of bilinguals, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) must complete a set of broad and deep analyses. 

 These analyses consist of both independent and relational analyses.  Independent analyses are those that do not relate the child’s productions to the adult target.  For example, the clinician should note the child’s phonetic inventory (arranged by place and manner or articulation) listing all the sounds that the child produces whether it’s produced correctly or not.  So, even is a child produces [t] instead of /k/, the child’s ability to produce [t] should be indicated.  After all, for this analysis, it’s what the child can/did do.  Other independent analyses might include:

• syllable types (e.g., CV, CVC, etc.)
• syllable shapes (how syllable types combine—CV$CV)
• word length (e.g., number of syllables per word)

 Relational analyses are those that compare the child’s production to the adult target and might include:

• Overall consonant accuracy
• Consonant accuracy by sound class
• Vowel accuracy
• Error types using a SODA format: Substitutions, Omissions, Distortions, Additions
• Percentage-of-occurrence of phonological patterns (e.g., final consonant deletion, stopping)
• Intelligibility
• Contextual effects (where does the error occur—initial position, final position, both?)
• Stimulability (can the child produce the target after a model?)

 SLPs are often overwhelmed initially by the number of analyses I suggest, as there are issues of time and efficiency.  I understand and appreciate those issues.  These analyses should be thought of as a buffet.  Choose the ones that are most satisfying to you.  However, I believe that completing this array of analyses leads to more reliable and valid diagnoses and link clearly and specifically to intervention targets.

Contradictions

What’s really interesting in development (or not) of bilingualism in the U.S. is who should be educated in dual language programs, what purpose they serve, and when should they begin/end. A number of studies demonstrate that children in dual language programs do well in these programs, they don’t fall behind children who are placed in immersion programs, and they even show some advantages on some testing. An added benefit I’ve read about (but, I don’t have data at hand) is that students who were ELLs are less likely to drop out of school if they attended a dual-language program. That’s a great benefit to our society as a whole.

How proficient is proficient enough?

The Des Moines Register had an article yesterday about a high school senior who refused to take the English language fluency test required for students who learned English as a second language. Her argument was that she was fluent in English and that this was evidenced by the fact that she has nearly a straight A average in courses that are taught exclusively in English. Her parents are immigrants from Laos but she was born in the U.S. While she learned Lao at home, she has likely been exposed to English her entire school career.

So, how long do you need, and when can yearly proficiency testing stop?

Hanging out at NABE

Okay, I confess I didn’t really attend the National Association for Bilingual Education last week in Austin. Actually, I didn’t even realize it was in Austin till a couple of colleagues e-mailed me to ask if I was going. I’ve been so immersed in my own research, conference travel, and trying to complete a couple of papers I’ve been sitting on that it just didn’t make it on my radar. But, I did hang out in hotel lobbies and hotel bars after sessions to meet up with people who DID attend. In fact, I had a drink with Alba Ortiz (also at UT Austin) whom I hadn’t seen in a while. Why do we not take the time to see the people with whom we have common interests and who are just a few blocks away more regularly?